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Reciprocal Rights 

of 

Capital, Labor, Buyers 
£5 the State 


BY 

SAMUEL L. PHILLIPS 

(A.M. Princeton University) 


Price, $1.2 5 


PUBLISHED by 

THE NATIONAL CAPITAL PUBLISHING CO. 
330 John Marshall Place 
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 





Copyright , 1919, 

By The National Capital Publishing Company 


/ 



*«* 


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


©CI.A5 29 948 


t/ 


SEP 24 1919 - 


/ 

3- 


41 '• 



Table of Contents 


CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Basic Cause of Economic Unrest. 2 

Necessity for Obstacles. 5 

Moral Obstacles. 7 

Attraction of the Earth is the Basic Cause 

of Inequality of Physical Effort ... 10 

Universal Desire to Escape Labor. 14 

Intellectual Effort. 16 

CHAPTER II 

Capital. 18 

Equality of Capital and Labor. 21 

Agencies Modifying Their Antagonism ... 24 

CHAPTER III 

Land. 27 

Regulation of Ownership of Land. 31 

Surplus Land a Misdemeanor. 36 

Housing of the Homeless. 41 

Building Associations, Savings Banks, and 

Government Bonds. 45 

Constitutional Power of Congress to Legis¬ 
late on Purchase of Farms and Homes . . 49 

CHAPTER IV 

Nobility of Labor. 51 

Abstinence from Intoxicating Drinks ... 54 

Labor. 56 

Strikes and Lockouts . .. 60 

Labor Unions. 64 

Responsibility of Labor Leaders and Capi¬ 
talists . 68 

Minimum Wage. 71 




















Contents 


chapter v 

PAGE 

Supply and Demand. 76 

Combinations of Capitalists and Labor Unions 80 

CHAPTER VI 

Governmental Restraint. 85 

CHAPTER VII 

Buyers . * . . ..*. 88 

CHAPTER VIII 

The State. 90 

CHAPTER IX 

The Constitution of the United States ... 98 

CHAPTER X 

Immigration .103 

CHAPTER XI 

Tariff.*.. . 107 

CHAPTER XII 

Merchant Marine.113 

CHAPTER XIII 

Socialism .119 

CHAPTER XIV 

Communism.132 

CHAPTER XV 

The Remedy.135 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Future. 152 













Reciprocal Rights of Capital, 
Labor, Buyers, and the State 



'HE scientific and successful physician who 


A undertakes to treat the ailments of the physical 
body of animals makes it his first object to ascertain 
exactly what are the abnormal symptoms manifested, 
and when these are clearly apprehended to discover 
their causes and apply the remedy. 

This is so plainly the correct course to be pur¬ 
sued in an investigation of the Reciprocal Rights 
of Capital, Labor, Buyers, and the State that its 
attempted demonstration would be useless. 

And yet in matters of political unrest, of social 
revolution, of the cry of the workingman against 
his employer, of the poor against the rich, those 
investigating the subject often content themselves 
wfith the general assertion that certain abuses exist 
which ought to be corrected without pointing out 
the specific evils causing the unrest, or how they 
may be cured. 


111 


Chapter I 

BASIC CAUSE OF ECONOMIC UNREST 


HE basic cause of unrest in political, social, and 



JL economic life is inequality. From fortuitous 
circumstances, such as birth, relationship, health, 
location, the times, and from circumstances some¬ 
what within the control of individuals, as energy, 
both physical and mental, superior wisdom, educa¬ 
tion, integrity of character, heredity and other 
causes, an inequality is constantly established and 
the fortunately endowed rule the weaker, wealth 
is accumulated by the few, and comparative poverty 
is the rule among the many. 

This condition is greatly deplored by the less for¬ 
tunate, but it is submitted and it will be attempted 
to be demonstrated herein that this is the funda¬ 
mental order of life which an All Wise Providence 
has established, and in the effort by individuals and 
peoples to attain the coveted standards of others, 
improvement in the human animal has been achieved, 
and by which a better, a nobler race of men must 
be established or mankind sink to lower levels of 
physical and mental existence. 

If there is any thing patent to even ordinary ob¬ 
servation it is that no two things are alike. This 


Basic Cause of Economic Unrest 

deduction applies to the whole realm of nature — 
to inanimate objects and to animate life. It is a 
great fact of the universe and comprehends all 
things, but not laws. A natural law manifests in¬ 
variably the same results. So true is this, that its 
principles are formulated by scientists in mathe¬ 
matical symbols, and when the processes of reduc¬ 
tion of the equations are correct they invariably 
produce results not only true, but forever identical. 
But not so with things. It is this unlikeness, this 
inequality coupled with the plastic character of 
the body and mind of men, that ever presents a 
vista for an ascent into the realms of a more com¬ 
plex existence or a descent to a lower life. If all 
things were on a level no improvement could be 
made, no example of higher value would exist to 
stimulate individuals to attain it, no reward would 
dazzle the eyes of youth; all effort would cease, and 
Effort has been under the decree of the Creator 
the great power by which man has attained his 
lordship over the brute creation, and the ruling 
nations of the earth their dominion over their less 
active brethren. 

A youth naturally endowed with a capacity for 
the highest intellectual development, as an analyti¬ 
cal mind, a calm and broad grasp of facts, retentive 
memory with great energy, and who under a wise 
and persistent education of these natural faculties 
would hold the senates of the world, this same youth, 
if deprived of the essentials for development, of the 
knowledge of facts and constant mental deductions 
[ 3 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

from them; if kept, for example, at absorbing manual 
labor and withdrawn from intercourse with men, 
would pass through life without his voice being 
heard, or even his existence noted. 

In this supposed case of mental superiority it was 
effort under favorable circumstances which has 
made the orator and statesman. 

Another child, born of strong healthy parents, 
is unfortunately confined during his adolescence to 
indoor life with no opportunity to develop his mus¬ 
cular and nervous systems; this child having become 
a man will be a poor weakly specimen of humanity. 
He has made no effort at physical development and 
consequently possesses no animal vigor. 

Such instances might be cited indefinitely through 
the whole course of physical and mental life. 

There is no advantage in complaining of this 
rule of nature. It is born in the very composition 
of mankind. The creature starts with a body and a 
mind, both immature, undeveloped, without knowl¬ 
edge, but with potentialities — potentialities to be 
improved by well-directed labor, or allowed to re¬ 
main undeveloped or atrophied. This is the great 
Creator’s scheme, and no human law, no device 
of those who do not conform to it, will avail aught. 
It is beyond and above all modification by mankind. 

Work, unremitting work, for all those who wish 
to succeed is the price that must be paid. 


[4] 


Necessity for Obstacles 


NECESSITY FOR OBSTACLES 

But there can be no work unless there are ob¬ 
stacles to be overcome. Obstacles are everywhere, 
and are met at every moment of our lives. 

All matter has weight. To shape it and place it in 
positions to serve our purposes impose obstacles to 
be counterbalanced by the exertion of force greater 
than the force of resistance which it possesses. 

Every mental acquirement is attained only after 
meeting and overcoming often the most harassing 
obstacles. Take the higher mathematics. What 
persistency of thought, what mental exhaustion, 
what continuity of effort its student has compelled 
himself to undergo before he can rank as an expert. 

It is these obstacles, meeting us at every step, 
that present a resistance to be overcome, that give 
us the opportunity to exercise and develop our 
native faculties. If there were no weight to be over¬ 
come, no power could be exerted and the muscles 
would not be strengthened. If everything was known 
beforehand, the mind could not be improved in 
solving questions relating to ratiocination. 

So it may fairly be taken as true in its largest 
sense that the development and advancement of 
mankind depend primarily on the existence of 
obstacles or difficulties to be surmounted; and the 

[ 5 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

world might as well recognize it at once and in the 
most unequivocal manner that Labor in every de¬ 
partment of life is the one universal and imperative 
necessity for human advancement. 


[6] 


Moral Obstacles 


MORAL OBSTACLES 

Not only in the physical and mental realms 
wherein men abide, but no less in the social and 
moral life of humanity, does mankind feel itself 
obliged to overcome obstacles. These obstacles in 
many instances are denominated as Sins. 

If there were no sins the moral nature of man 
would be perfect; and if man was perfect he would 
be no longer the individual we know. But such is 
not the case. He is full of defects, moral defects. 
He is a constant violator of all the commandments 
of the decalogue. It has pleased his Creator to 
make him so, with all the infirmities of the flesh, and 
this it is believed for the highest and wisest pur¬ 
poses and for his own best good. 

There can be no doubt, in view of the scientific 
knowledge of the present day, that the earth was 
originally a part of the great central luminary, the 
sun; that it has cooled and contracted, and that as 
early as its physical condition permitted, seas and 
dry land appeared, and with them vegetable and 
animal life, which has constantly become more and 
more heterogeneous until it numbers millions of 
the most varied and beautiful forms. 

In all this there has been a continual evolution 
from the simple to the complex, from the lower in 

m 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

intelligence to the higher, with man standing at the 
present moment as the culmination of all this de¬ 
velopment which has been ceaselessly at work for 
probably millions of years. 

But more, all of this development has, under the 
guidance of its Author, been the work of these multi¬ 
tudinous beings in a great contest among themselves 
in which the fittest to live have survived, wherein 
the more energetic have as a rule triumphed over 
the careless or weaker. 

Confining our thoughts for the moment to moral 
matters, for any improvement to have been made in 
morality, for men to have arisen from the law of the 
beast which recognizes no property, no law but force, 
they have as their civilization has advanced learned 
more and more to restrain themselves, to subdue 
the natural impulse to kill those impeding their 
strong desires, to admit the rights of property, to 
refrain from deception, etc. 

It is the ever presence of these imperfections, of 
a constant desire for what is prohibited, furnishing 
obstacles to be overcome that present the resistances, 
in the overcoming of which the moral nature of man 
has grown, for, as said before in regard to the body 
and mind, no power can be exerted if no resistance 
is offered, and if no effort is exerted the moral faculty 
lies dormant and no improvement is accomplished. 

That is to say, the opportunity to sin must exist, 
if the individual is to grow in grace by resisting it, 
if he is to become a nobler and higher man. And 
this shows the wonderful order of Providence in 
[ 8 ] 


Moral Obstacles 


allowing Sin, or rather obstacles to morality, to beset 
all men in all the paths of life. They apply to their 
moral nature in strict analogy to physical and mental 
difficulties; or in other words, Effort, that is, 
Labor, is the law of their moral as well as of their 
physical and mental advancement. 

If the above statements are true there can be no 
moral growth unless Sin exists to be overcome. 
God has been wiser than the theologian who de¬ 
claims against its existence. 


[ 9 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


ATTRACTION OF THE EARTH IS THE 

BASIC CAUSE OF THE INEQUALITY OF 

PHYSICAL EFFORT 

The preceding observations have related to the 
general proposition that not only inequalities exist 
among all physical, mental, and moral capacities 
of men, but also that obstacles necessary for hu¬ 
man welfare exist, and must be overcome more 
or less by the efforts of every individual; and 
further that these obstacles present greater diffi¬ 
culties to some men than they do to others, the 
consequences of which are unequal possession 
and enjoyment of the necessities and comforts of 
life. 

The consciousness of this inequality is the fruitful 
mother of discontent by the many who have been 
less successful, and of their envy against the few 
who are apparently in the possession of things 
desired by them. 

Another preliminary remark should be here intro¬ 
duced, namely, that in the great contest between 
Capital and Labor the threefold nature of humanity 
is closely united. The production commercially of 
the desirable things of life involves physical resist¬ 
ance, mental capacity, and a conscientious per¬ 
formance of the duty assumed. As briefly shown 
[ io ] 


Basic Cause of Inequality of Physical Effort 

heretofore each task presents obstacles to be sur¬ 
mounted, and an unequal capacity in each and every 
worker to reach the commercial goal assigned, 
namely, profitable production. 

Man is therefore forever in competition with his 
fellow workman as a producer of the needful, and 
no less the determined contestant of the man who 
buys his labor in so far that he would make him pay 
its full value. 

A matter of prime importance enforcing itself 
upon all animals from the earliest period of their 
observation is that all things have weight; and 
further, this weight is very nearly the measure of 
their strength to overcome it; in other words the 
attraction of the earth is ever offering resistance to 
every atom being moved from its place of rest. A 
wonderful thing this Gravitation, holding by in¬ 
visible bands every particle of matter in situ. At 
the spot where it rests, there it will remain until 
moved by some extraneous force. 

Think for a moment what an immense power this 
attraction is exerting over articles of constant and 
immediate use by men. Every cubic foot of sand 
weighs 60 lbs.; of clay 80 lbs.; of common bricks 
120 lbs.; of cast iron 450 lbs.; of wheat 48 lbs.; of 
water 59 lbs.; of pine wood 30 lbs. It is of these 
things and of others of like weight that men build 
the boxes they inhabit, and fashion their tools with 
which to construct other instruments necessary for 
the cultivation of the soil in order to eat and live, 
and to protect their hairless and defenseless bodies 

[ 11 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

from the blisters of the sun, and the chilliness of the 
northwest winds. 

When mankind is thus hampered by the very 
weight of the instruments he must use to bring into 
existence the prime necessities of life; when more¬ 
over these very articles when produced are equally 
affected by this ever-present weight and cannot even 
be used without the exhaustion of the strength of the 
user; and all the more when we take into the equa¬ 
tion the small weight of man as opposed to the weight 
to be overcome, the feebleness of his muscles, the 
easy and rapid exhaustion of his nerves, his frequent 
inability from age and sickness, this monster Labor 
raises its horrifying specter as some mighty and ugly 
octopus which is holding all mankind in its never 
relaxing grasp. 

And yet it is God’s law, and out of the overcoming 
of its exactions has grown the animal man to be the 
ruler of the earth, with a cherished instinctive hope 
of a blissful immortality. 

Ay, this ubiquitous Gravitation! ’ 

Astronomical science has demonstrated that the 
planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and all of 
them are held in the grasp of this universal force as 
fully and effectually as our Earth. At once the 
generalization is apparent that all life on them is 
or will be subject at the time of its existence to 
the same exigencies we experience. Animals there 
will have to labor to support existence, and in labor¬ 
ing will develop themselves into higher and nobler 
beings. 


Basic Cause of Inequality of Physical Effort 

So we find a unity of design everywhere — a 
design making all animal life generally, and each 
individual in particular, the architect of his own 
advancement, in proportion to the Effort he exerts 
to surmount the obstacles which oppose themselves 
to the procurement of his necessities and the defense 
of his existence. 

To the mind fully comprehending the meaning 
of these provisions of nature that the highest en¬ 
joyments of life come from the exercise of the natural 
faculties, that the muscles enjoy nothing so much as 
their due and proper employment, that the mind is 
only contented when it has unrestricted range of 
thought and hope, that a high joy is ever the sequel 
of moral rectitude, and that the performance of these 
acts has been made by an All Wise Providence the 
indispensable requirement of advancement to even 
yet higher pleasures, the thoughtful mind cannot 
help bowing in adoration to the love of a Creator 
who makes pleasure and happiness to spring out of 
the Labor to provide for the very necessities of 
living. 

These views will be recognized by the political 
economist, but unfortunately the masses of men, 
who from the want of education, or from their minds 
being ever engrossed in more or less manual labor 
and financial problems, do not understand how 
Labor is their highest blessing instead of a universal 
curse which envelops all in its exhausting pall. 


[ 13] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


UNIVERSAL DESIRE TO ESCAPE LABOR 

Notwithstanding these beautiful and beneficent 
views just expressed all men with few exceptions 
unwillingly devote themselves to toil. It is only 
the stern demand for food and shelter for themselves 
and those dependent upon them that forces them to 
work, and even while working their minds are ever 
on the alert to find some less exacting task. So 
universal a characteristic must have a substantial 
foundation. 

A multitude of things are ever prompting the de¬ 
sire to escape labor. As stated above, the weight 
of matter; physical exhaustion from overcoming its 
weight; sickness; the undersize and oversize of man’s 
body; the allurements of some other tasks; the cap¬ 
tivating pleasures of freedom; the imagined happi¬ 
ness of the rich. But even in this apparent but un¬ 
real enemy to the pleasures of mankind, there are 
to be found healthful compensations which con tribute 
to a high development, as in the constant effort to 
invent machinery and to use the laws of nature 
to take the place of personal exertion,—in a word, 
to discover the paths of least resistance. 

It is altogether a noble and wise ambition to seize 
upon the laws of nature to increase the production 
of the necessities and comforts of living. Such a 

[ 14 ] 


Universal Desire to Escape Labor 

course has many blessings. It stimulates the mind 
to conquer obstacles, it engages physical strength 
adequately for a high development of the muscles 
and nerves, it produces usually better made articles 
for use, it multiplies production enormously, it 
increases the range of the use of the necessities and 
refining objects of daily life, and it gives more time 
for higher aesthetical enjoyments. 

In 1857 a petition was circulated for general 
signature, memorializing Congress to prevent the 
issuance of a patent to the inventor of the sewing 
machine, claiming it would reduce to poverty every 
poor seamstress in the land. How narrow-minded 
was the thought. On the contrary it has stimulated 
the production in greater quantities of cotton, silk, 
wool, flax, etc., caused the looms to weave billions 
of yards of these articles to be joined by the needle 
into useful and beautiful fabrics, saved the eyes of 
women from blurring, substituted the flounce for 
the plain skirt and contributed to the pleasure of all. 
The world with its vast population of this day could 
not be fed if it had not been for the invention of the 
McCormick reaper for wheat and rye. 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


INTELLECTUAL EFFORT 

Our consideration so far has been principally con¬ 
cerned with labor bestowed on material objects, 
but such labor relates only to a part of the affairs of 
life. Among a civilized people the products of 
thought are as important as the works of the arm. 
Indeed they go hand in hand, and are as inseparable 
as the body is from the mind. All work, even of the 
simplest character, the shaping of a stone arrow 
head, or the production of a flame by friction, in¬ 
volves mental capacity and aptitude. How much 
more when transcontinental railroads are to be 
organized and kept in working order; when enormous 
mercantile houses buy millions of stuffs and sell the 
same annually; when armies are mobilized to be 
armed and to fight; when every manufacturer, every 
broker, every merchant, every man engaged in han¬ 
dling and supplying necessities and comforts, if he 
wishes to be successful, must give almost from dawn 
until night his undivided attention and watchful 
care to the orderly workings of his business. 

It is true these things do not exhaust the muscles 
like physical labor, but the concentrated attention 
of the mind, the worry in meeting and fighting ad¬ 
verse circumstances, the earnest desire for success, 
wear and fatigue the nerves, hopes, and ambitions 

[ 16] 


Intellectual Effort 


of men, and breed unhappiness far greater than 
mere physical effort. 

And yet men for the most part readily accept 
this mental task rather than bodily work. This may 
be accounted for from the facts that it is less tire¬ 
some to the muscles, gives greater social position, and 
is rewarded usually with higher emoluments. There 
can be no dispute that it takes more mental capac¬ 
ity to plan a correct cantilever bridge than is pos¬ 
sessed by the workman who rivets the beams 
together; more knowledge by the general who directs 
a successful campaign than the soldier who carries 
the rifle, and so on down into all the intricacies 
of modern commercial and economic business. 

Naturally great inequalities exist in the amount 
of mental effort, its character, and the remuneration 
received. Each and every one among the more 
highly paid is anxious to maintain if not increase 
his compensation; those among the lower stations 
are jealous of the inequality and are always looking 
for more. Thus we find the same order of things to 
exist among the brain workers as among the hand 
workers, namely, a discontent with their situation, 
and a frequent antagonism to their employer; al¬ 
though it must be admitted that the mental worker 
generally succeeds in establishing better conditions 
for himself than the laborer, if the latter has not 
organized his power by Unions or other associations. 


Chapter II 


CAPITAL 

I N all production involving the employment of 
Labor there must exist more or less Capital. It 
is ordinarily the fund which secures the raw ma¬ 
terial, the tools for operation, shelter for the pro¬ 
duction, and wages for the workman. 

What, therefore, is this important element which 
is so much a part of business that it cannot proceed 
without its being an integral part of the enterprise? 

A mechanic is paid for his labor four dollars per 
day. At the end of the day his expenses have 
amounted to two dollars, and he has in his pocket 
two dollars. These two dollars represent Capital, 
his saved labor. Capital, therefore, in its most 
general signification, may be defined to be Saved 
Labor. It is in every case the excess value of pro¬ 
duction over expenditure. 

Capital may consist of gold or silver coin, or it 
may take the form of real estate, or machinery, or 
raw or manufactured goods, or any other commodity 
or thing valuable from any cause, also responsible 
obligations representing such articles. 

There can be no commercial production without 
Capital, and Capital that is idle, not engaged in 

[ 18] 


Capital 

production, is, during the period of its unemploy¬ 
ment, commercially valueless. A mechanic who 
is not working is for the time of his idleness an 
economically useless individual; a million of gold 
dollars locked in a private vault, or a factory vacant, 
have for the moment no potent value. It is the 
activity of each, their movement in commerce, 
their reciprocal exchange, the transmutation of 
Capital into Labor and Labor into Capital that 
gives life to each. The instant this relation ceases 
they are both commercially dead, although possess¬ 
ing potentiality, like a weight held in suspense above 
the earth, ready to exert its power to the extent of 
its terrestrial attraction when released. 

This employment simultaneously of Capital and 
Labor arises out of the necessity of men engaging 
others to do something for them, instead of supply¬ 
ing all their own wants, while they in turn are 
supplying others, thereby securing greater and 
better production for all. Capital and Labor are 
like the Siamese twins. The vital ligament uniting 
them cannot be severed without the death of 
both. 

It is therefore unwise, unphilosophic, to declaim 
against either. But unfortunately they both, being 
the children of men, partake of all their errors, 
their selfishness, and even cruelties to which hu¬ 
manity is so prone; and inasmuch as the working¬ 
man does not change his nature by becoming a 
capitalist, nor the capitalist his inborn characteris¬ 
tics by becoming a workingman, the one class, when 

[ 19 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

opportunities serve, has about the same vices and 
the same virtues as are possessed by the other. 

It is these vices, consisting for the most part of 
selfishness in its various ugly forms and possessed 
by both alike, and both in the same degree under 
the same circumstances, which need the charitable 
regulation and control of others who for the moment 
are themselves not interested in the particular 
struggle. 

The principles of justice and correct conduct are 
known to all men. They are innate, but the vision 
of a contestant seeking his own aims is quickly dis¬ 
torted by his individual interests. He is not an un¬ 
biased judge in his own case. Yet his neighbor who 
is removed entirely from self-interest in the contro¬ 
versy may reasonably be expected to pass a righteous 
judgment, just to both parties. 


Equality of Capital and Labor 


EQUALITY OF CAPITAL AND LABOR 

The causes for the undue exactions of Capital 
against Labor are many in number and arise out of 
the egoism of humanity. Prominent among them 
are: 

1. The desire of all men to secure themselves 
against the eventuality of poverty. 

2. The gratification of the sentiment to grow rich 
for the mere sake of wealth. This is a very powerful 
impulse, growing in strength with its own accumu¬ 
lation — worshiping the golden calf. The miser is 
the personification of this type of capitalist. 

3. Eagerness to be known among other capital¬ 
ists as possessing wealth, and the gratification of 
the heart yearnings of ambitious wives and children 
for the gilding of their social positions by the gold 
of their husbands and fathers. 

4. The continuation of a life of saving and success 
— the success habit — which has marked the earlier 
efforts of the capitalist. 

5. To meet increasing expenditures of household 
and personal pleasures, which ever multiply in 
proportion to the funds available, and sometimes 
even faster than the profits of engaged enterprises. 

6. To offset losses in business, and actual or 
threatened competition. 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

7. And sadly too often, an entire indifference to 
the wants and necessities of Labor, and to a feeling 
of revenge arising from the belief that the working¬ 
man is the worst enemy of Capital. 

With such an array of potent causes attacking as 
they do the vitality, the heart of men, swaying 
their judgments, blinding from apparent self-interest 
often the sense of right and wrong on the part of the 
capitalist, and at the same moment the workingman 
feeling the immediate pinch of want, seeing no 
prospect in the future for the betterment of his 
financial or social position, and who in the impotency 
of his efforts resorts to strikes and riots; with such 
antagonism so actively at work, should we not 
expect, can it be otherwise than that such condi¬ 
tions engender, a perpetual strife between Capital 
and Labor when they are both unrestrained in their 
excesses ? 

Their reconciliation, without undue advantage 
to either, is the goal which should be sought by the 
political economist. Labor should have the last 
right to which it is entitled; honest Capital, being 
Saved Labor, should be held as equally sacred, for 
let it be known by all as a supreme law of this world 
that no man can receive more than his just earnings, 
except by taking from some other man what is 
lawfully his own. 

This great law may be violated for the moment, 
aye, for years, but there will come a time when the 
solemn pendulum of God’s justice will swing to the 
other side of equality, and annihilate its violators, 

[ 22 ] 


Equality of Capital and Labor 

and take from them their selfish and unhallowed 
profits. 

Is not this wonderful law now in active operation 
in Russia, where for centuries millions of creatures 
oppressed with poverty, with ignorance, with bru¬ 
tality by a supercilious, arrogant, and false nobility, 
by monopolists of land, by unconscientious capi¬ 
talists, are now in an orgy of crimes endeavoring as 
best they know to secure the right to live and be 
happy? 

The only safe way to prevent revolutions is to 
give no occasion for them. There can be no revolt 
against justice. It is crime — physical, social, moral 
crime — against which the heart of mankind cries 
out. It is justice which it ever worships and en¬ 
thrones. 


[23] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


AGENCIES MODIFYING THEIR 
ANTAGONISM 

1. There is among the most of mankind a natural 
sense of the justice due to one’s fellow man and which 
in many instances modifies for the better the relation 
of employer and employee. This sentiment is of 
limited operation. If the sacrifice is not too great 
it becomes effective among some. 

2. The principles of charity and honesty taught 
by the Christian religion have also an active agency 
in economic life among some of the disciples of 
their Lord. But when the stake is great, and in¬ 
tense desire is awakened, the principles taught from 
pulpits are too often forgotten even by the apparently 
earnest professors of the highest cult, and their bar¬ 
gains are as severe as those of other men. 

3. When applause or condemnation from fellow 
men is expected, it has a powerful influence in 
modifying business relations. But it is easy to 
bestow applause or censure when one has no direct 
personal interest in the affair, and this agency has 
its limitations. 

4. All business is an exceedingly complex matter. 
A score of influences proceed from every direction. 
The gaining of a point on one side of the case may 
occasion a loss even greater on another side. So, 

[24] 


Agencies Modifying Their Antagonism 

most frequently there results a weighing of proba¬ 
bilities as to which course of conduct is likely to 
be most profitable. This rule of conduct applies 
to both capitalist and workingman, and operates 
more powerfully, probably, than any other agency 
in economics. An employer figures that a strike 
of his workmen would cost him $100,000. An 
acquiescence in their demands would increase his 
expenses of manufacture to $75,000. To avoid 
the strike he proposes a new basis involving an 
increase to $50,000. The employes estimate that 
the strike would by loss of their time reduce their 
earnings to $25,000. They weigh the two sums 
and conclude that their interests will be served best 
by accepting the $50,000 increase offered, and the 
strike is declared “off.” 

5. Sumptuary and economic legislation is more 
and more exerting a controlling influence on the 
relation of Capital and Labor. 

Occasionally a cunningly devised law is passed, 
under much camouflage, wherein wealth is benefited 
at the expense of the great law of Supply and Demand 
— but this is rare, for the Argus-eyed politician 
who caters to the masses for his reelection is ever 
on the lookout to discover any scheme, and to ex¬ 
pose it in order to make himself popular with his 
constituents. 

But the capitalists are comparatively few in 
number, the men who work are many, and in a 
country where the votes of two laborers earning 
one dollar a day each, representing Current Labor, 

[25] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

elect their candidate to the position of lawmaker 
over the single vote of the capitalist with a million 
dollars of Saved Labor, and consequently every¬ 
where in the National Congress and in the State 
Legislatures alike, laws have been and are con¬ 
stantly enacted to restrain Capital and advance the 
privileges of Labor. For the most part it may be 
affirmed that these laws have up to the present time 
remedied a number of manifest abuses under which 
the poor were suffering. But this is all a most 
dangerous method of correcting evils. There is 
such a tendency in helping one side to go to the 
extreme of injuring the other party — and as stated 
before there is just so much food to go around, and 
to fill one plate with more than it should have, will 
leave another plate with less than its share. The 
philosophy of this principle lies in the fact that 
nature offers nothing free. Whatever exists on the 
face of the earth today is the result of either current 
or saved labor, and each of these belongs of right 
to the individual who created it. 


[26] 


Chapter III 
LAND 

I N surveying the politico-economic status of civ¬ 
ilized society for the abuses which have grown 
up from the superior industry and intelligence and 
selfishness of some men, and which may be remedied 
to some extent by wise legislation without undue 
injury to wealth, and to the great advantage of the 
masses of men, is the regulation of the ownership 
of Land. The possession and cultivation of Land 
is the foundation stone on which the entire struc¬ 
ture of civilization must be erected. Our Creator 
chose to make men animals. As an animal he is 
composed principally of nitrogen and oxygen and 
carbon. His flesh and blood are nitrogen, his fat is 
carbon. His oxygen is engaged continually in burn¬ 
ing to ashes both his flesh and his fat. This process 
develops heat, that is, his ability to work. The ashes, 
the result of this combustion, are no longer capable 
of combustion, and for vitality to proceed, more 
nitrogen and more carbon must be introduced into 
the body, in the forms of proteids, which are di¬ 
gestible nitrogen; and hydrocarbons, digestible car¬ 
bon. But we know of no proteids and no hydro¬ 
carbons except those which come from the land, and 

[27] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

only a sufficient quantity of these indispensable 
substances can be produced from Cultivated Land. 

So it may be affirmed without doubt that the 
possession of land for cultivation is the first need 
of people — indispensable and ever pressing; and 
its monopoly by a few and its want by the many 
will in any industrious civilized community be an 
unappeasable source of discontent between the 
wealthy and the poor. Out of this wrong in Russia 
where the aristocrats, 150,000 in number, held great 
tracts of land, and the peasants, 130,000,000, who 
made this same land yield its golden harvests for 
them, had not a square perch of it to call their own, 
has most naturally arisen that great enemy to 
society and to the development of man, Bolshevism. 
Undeniably this cruel, unjust, unwise ownership of 
land by a selfish class should be abolished, and this 
indispensable necessity of life be distributed among 
the many in such reasonable tracts as would con¬ 
tribute to the life and joy of those who labored it, 
but this division should be done with due regard 
to what might be considered vested rights, to the 
well ordering of society, and not by wholesale evic¬ 
tion and spoliation, without regard to any equities 
existing in favor of the former owners. Land and 
property acquired without right, without the process 
of law, rarely benefit the new owner any more than 
stolen articles are of value to the thief. 

Great Britain has recognized this principle in 
regard to tenants in Ireland, and be it said to her 
great credit that the passage of a comparatively 
[28] 


Land 


recent law has enabled thousands of Irish tenants 
of lands occupied by them and their ancestors for 
hundreds of years to become their owners in fee 
simple. The operation of this wise and humane law, 
passed by the British Parliament shortly prior to 
1897, is substantially as follows. The Government 
created a Land Commission and issued its Consoli¬ 
dated Bonds at a low rate of interest to the value of 
millions of dollars. Every tenant of land had and 
still has a right to apply to this Commission to be¬ 
come the absolute owner of the tract he occupies. 
The Commission values the land and improve¬ 
ments, condemns it for the use of the tenant, and 
pays the owner from the proceeds of the sale of the 
bonds. All relation between the tenant and the 
former owner ceases, but the tenant is charged 
with an annuity, being the interest on the cost of the 
land, a fraction of one per centum higher than paid 
by the Government on its bonds, and also such 
further sum to liquidate the entire indebtedness in 
sixty-six years. Twenty years after 1897, that is 
in 1917, an account was settled between the tenant 
and the State; the tenant was given the benefit of 
all his payments in excess of interest charged and 
the principal of the annuity was reduced, thus re¬ 
lieving him of his burden to that extent and the 
rack rents of Ireland were practically abolished. 

If Great Britain would introduce this splendid 
scheme in England and Scotland, and break up 
some of those immense estates, comprising in some 
cases thousands of acres, held by the aristocrats for 

[ 29 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

shooting of grouse and coursing of dogs in pursuit 
of hares and deer, the productive area of the Island 
would be vastly increased, hundreds of thousands 
of families provided with healthful homes and lucra¬ 
tive occupation with contented minds, the country 
made self-supporting in the production of foods, 
and the vast expenditures of the present greatest 
naval establishment of the world rendered largely 
useless. 

To maintain this aristocracy in its idleness, in 
its monopoly of land — Land — the one absolutely 
indispensable possession which should be as evenly 
distributed as possible among all, the English people 
have for centuries built ships of war, cast cannons, 
manufactured millions of tons of ammunition in 
order to prevent themselves from being starved by 
enemy blockades, when some of this fear might 
have been appeased by the subdivision of her won¬ 
derfully fertile soil among her hardy, brave, and 
industrious people. 


[30] 


Regulation of Ownership of Land 


REGULATION OF THE OWNERSHIP OF 
LAND THE GREATEST OF ALL ECO¬ 
NOMIC PROBLEMS 

It is self-evident that the subdivision of Land 
into smaller and smaller parcels must become more 
imperative as population increases in countries of 
limited areas; because: 

1. The general education of the masses is teach¬ 
ing a better and more hygienic method of living, 
conducing to longevity and therefore a larger 
population. 

2. Improvements in surgery and the practice of 
medicine. 

3. Public regulations for health and prevention of 
disease. 

At no time in the history of the world has the 
death rate from ordinary diseases been so low, or the 
birth rate so high. 

Malthus, the distinguished political economist 
of the early part of the last century, felt this subject 
pressing on the English people and recommended 
as his panacea Emigration. But this is a poor 
remedy at best as long as land is unequally owned. 
A far better plan is to keep a nation’s people at 
home and give them the land to cultivate, produce 
wealth from it, and be happy. 

[31 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

But to divide land without injustice to owners 
presents the proper question. To seize it like the 
Bolshevists is clearly subversive of all rights and 
equities, and is destructive of the ownership of 
not only land but of all property. It is the death 
knell of what we understand to be civilized govern¬ 
ment— of that government which has filled the 
cities of Europe and America with magnificent 
public and private buildings, that has laid and 
operates iron railways and stone highways as close 
as net work over the habitable area of the globe, 
that has plowed the oceans with floating palaces, 
carrying bountiful harvests to all people, that has 
educated the sons of men. Bolshevism and extreme 
Socialism mean the end of all these things — these 
good things of life which men strive for and prize. 
For who will work, will exhaust themselves, will 
deny current pleasures, if what he earns is to be 
ruthlessly taken from him and distributed among 
the lazy and vicious? Bolshevism and Socialism 
are opposed to the very nature of man. Every 
motive for Effort would be paralyzed, and Effort 
as shown before has been the mighty lever by which 
men have raised themselves from savagery to civili¬ 
zation. Such systems may thrive for a while — 
they may exist while their advocates are feeding on 
the food previously produced under the stimulus of 
individual ownership, and are sheltering themselves 
in houses built by private effort; but the time will 
come when food has been consumed and they grow 
hungry, and some of these benighted creatures who 
[ 32 ] 


Regulation of Ownership of Land 

are now eating what other men have toiled for will 
stand surprised at the horrid skeleton filled with 
disease they have been worshiping. We say some 
of these misguided men will be shocked at their 
mistake. They will not comprise, however, the lazy 
or vicious or selfish. These like the poor will al¬ 
ways be with us, will clamor for bread they have 
not earned, will dance to music they do not pay for, 
will steal if necessary what they covet. 

At the date of the writing of these words British 
and American warships are steaming to Hamburg to 
prevent Socialists of that city from seizing the cargo 
of an American vessel carrying food, and distrib¬ 
uting it among themselves. 

No man who has labored and earned his little 
home—his cottage and garden by the wayside — 
is a Bolshevist; no man is a Socialist whose “Saved 
Labor” secures him a support against the poverty of 
old age. 

The wise and humane scheme in practice in 
Ireland might well be introduced in some of the 
States of the United States of America. The basic 
principles to be adopted should be controlled by an 
exact and equal justice between the old and new 
proprietor, and may be broadly enumerated as 
follows: 

1. Just and honest compensation to the owner for 
the value of the land taken, also any and all real 
incidental damages suffered by him in consequence 
of such expropriation. 

2. The payment for the land should be made by 

[ 33 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

the States, or by the National Government — pref¬ 
erably by the States. In the event that a State 
might be unable to undertake this amelioration of 
its population, corporations, exempt from taxation, 
might be chartered for the purpose of buying land 
and making improvements on the same with the 
express condition that they were acting as trustees 
for tenants or applicants for homesteads. 

3. The National Government, State, or Corpora¬ 
tion should be secured the repayment of the money 
advanced by an annuity issuing out of the land or 
by mortgage, providing for partial payments and 
amortization of the debt at reasonable rates of 
interest. 

4. Whenever an owner of land is adequately 
cultivating or using all the land in his possession or 
ownership, it should be exempt from expropriation, 
but no proprietor should be allowed against the 
application of one who does desire to use vacant 
and idle land, and who shows his ability to culti¬ 
vate profitably or make use of it, to hold on to it 
and thus withdraw it from its potential contribu¬ 
tion to the public welfare. 

It was a fundamental maxim of the English Com¬ 
mon Law announced three hundred years ago that 
no man may use his own property to the detriment 
of another. So no landowner should be permitted 
to hold untilled land, when his neighbor with strong 
arms and brave heart looks over the fence and 
offers to make it produce twenty bushels of wheat 
to the acre, or support ten pigs for the year. 

[34] 


Regulation of Ownership of Land 

There can be no compromise in this matter of 
Land. The moment a population has become so 
numerous its people have to import food to live, 
and yet there are thousands of square miles of rich 
and salubrious soil rank with weeds because no 
plow has turned under their unblushing heads; 
when emigration from the hearthstone and roof 
where a man was born and severance of the ties 
of parent and child must serve to prevent partial 
starvation, it is to the democratic mind almost 
inconceivable that such abuses should be allowed to 
exist, and it is not entirely without some sympathy 
for men who in large bodies rebel, revolutionize, 
and seize the thing so necessary to life and happi¬ 
ness, and from which they have been by the selfish¬ 
ness of others so unjustly deprived. 

And yet this surplus of avaricious owners should 
not be seized with the high hand of force. Robbery 
when allowed as to one class of property or rights 
soon extends itself to other things, and anarchy 
with a general demoralization permeates all society 
to the overthrow and destruction of civilization and 
then to a rapid retrograde to barbarism. Surely even 
a Bolshevist, if he would stop to think, does not 
wish to descend to the standard of the blacks of 
Middle Africa or to the savages of the Pacific 
Islands. Let such surplus land be condemned by 
competent and disinterested judges, and the pro¬ 
prietor paid its full value by the new owner under 
terms of sale so reasonable that the rights of each 
will be fairly preserved. 

[35] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


SURPLUS LAND TO BE DECLARED A 
MISDEMEANOR 

Auxiliary to the forced sale of Land not used 
for the benefit of the public and held by owners 
either for sport, for speculation, or otherwise, and 
which if distributed among the masses would con¬ 
tribute to the general welfare of society, the State 
may lawfully by statute declare that the undue 
accumulation of productive lands held idle by their 
proprietors is an act against Public Policy, an of¬ 
fense or crime against the public weal, and therefore 
capable of being penalized by an annual fine. 

The extent of this penalty should fit the crime. 
In a very populous state of society and where there 
exists a crying demand for land, or where the amount 
of unproductive land is excessive, the damages 
should be higher than in the contrary condition. 
Nor is there usually any injustice in this method to 
distribute land, because it will be found in almost 
all cases that the proprietor of large tracts is a 
grasping, avaricious capitalist looking for “ Unearned 
Increments” — values increased by the labor and 
enterprise of others, and to which he has contrib¬ 
uted nothing, but rather retarded them. He would 
reap where he has not sowu, and harvest where he 
has not tilled. 


Surplus Land a Misdemeanor 

This fine or penalty might be made so excessive 
as to make it unprofitable to the owner to continue 
to hold such unproductive property to the general 
detriment of the community. There is nothing 
socialistic or communistic in requiring that land 
should be used beneficially and not held idle to 
the injury of mankind. 

But a people will be hard pressed in these com¬ 
mercial days of the United States with its large 
cities and wide boundaries before there will be a 
necessity to resort generally to drastic measures 
against land proprietors for subdivision and sale, 
because: 

1. The cultivation of land to produce paying 
crops is an exhausting labor with long hours and 
unremitting toil. There is no work requiring greater 
strength and its employment than breaking the 
soil with a three-horse plow to the depth of nine 
inches; cutting maize; loading of hay; ditching; 
felling mature trees; the husbandman arising in 
the morning before sunrise to feed the stock, and 
eating supper after twilight has settled over the 
land, etc. 

2. The ever-present attraction of the earth upon 
all things causes men to shun such labor and seek 
the paths of least resistance. They will do any¬ 
thing but work hard. They flock to the cities and 
there enter the counting house, sit all day before 
desks with pen and pencil in their hands; become 
clerks to weigh out goods; stand as watchmen over 
other men urging the latter to work; enter profes- 

[ 37 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

sions of the law and medicine with little chance of 
success; educate children as teachers; in fact any¬ 
thing and any work rather than manual labor. A 
bureau of labor established in Baltimore, Maryland, 
and created to find employment for returned soldiers 
and sailors of the United States from France, made 
the public report on the day before the writing of 
these lines that of the large number examined all 
were eager for work, but it had to be what they 
called “general office” employment. None were 
willing to accept manual labor of any kind until 
forced by stem necessity, and as to farm labor, 
the universal reply was “Nothing doing on the 
farm idea,” although farmers stood ready to 
take them at $55 and $60 a month with board 
and lodging added, and would give them bonuses 
dependent on the amount of work they did. Only 
eight men of those who had visited the bureau 
showed interest in the plan of the government 
to help those returned fighters who wished to 
own farms of their own and to settle down on 
them. 

3. There is undoubtedly more or less isolation in 
country life. It has its advantages — it has its 
disadvantages. A powerful motive of all animal 
conduct is the formation of society. It is an ever- 
compelling instinct. Its enjoyment gives security 
for personal safety, it offers development for all 
the faculties of the body and mind, gratification in 
amusements, in diversions, in useful informations, 
etc. And yet let it be repeated that all things which 

[ 38 ] 


Surplus Land a Misdemeanor 

the urban man uses comes directly or indirectly from 
the earth. He is purely a distributor or a modifier 
(a very necessary business, however), and in a coun¬ 
try overpopulated, there is sure to come a time 
when hunger will gnaw and flesh will shiver from 
nakedness unless some return to the soil or emi¬ 
grate to localities where production keeps pace with 
consumption. 

But notwithstanding this antipathy of all men to 
manual labor, and no one is any better or purer than 
the other, and so no abusive epithets can with justice 
be used by either side, yet when there comes a period 
either general in the economic condition of a nation, 
or in the life of a particular undividual, there should 
always be land to be had for cultivation unless it is 
already occupied and used in a beneficial manner 
to the well-being of the public. 

It is the business of the State to repress evil when¬ 
ever its vile head appears above the level of civic 
justice, for let it not be forgotten that no evil exists, 
no sin remains unpunished, without an exactly equal 
wrong being perpetrated upon some innocent and 
guiltless victim. It is a deep, an all-profound 
economic, moral law pervading all human action, 
and which its Divine Author uses to curb injustice 
and establish the right. The only trouble in prevent¬ 
ing final victory is that the selfishness of man is con¬ 
stantly devising new attacks on correct conduct, 
which have to be met by new defenses. But do not 
let the Christian moralist complain of even this order 
of nature, for there can be no improvement in moral 

[39] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

conduct if there is no sin to be overcome. Let 
him rather rejoice at the entrancing pleasures here 
and hereafter to be enjoyed by him, in the language 
of St. John, the Apocalyptist, “who overcometh. ,, 


[40] 


Housing of the Homeless 


HOUSING OF THE HOMELESS 

More than half of the people of the United States 
are congregated in communities as distinguished 
from isolated farming lands. These urban workers 
should be supplied with houses — sanitary and com¬ 
fortable at reasonable prices or rents. This is a 
fundamental right, and there can be no peace be¬ 
tween Capital and Labor until this prime necessity 
of life is reasonably provided for. When private 
capital and enterprise cannot meet adequately the 
situation, when Supply and Demand definitely fail 
to provide homes for all, it is unhesitatingly asserted 
to be the duty of the respective States, and on their 
default, the duty of the National Government, to 
provide such homes for all people, to be paid for by 
them on just and equitable terms. For again to 
give such houses free to even the poor and needy is 
to take from those whose capital has gone into their 
construction what of right belongs to them. It 
will be observed that throughout this study there 
has been a persistent effort to suggest ways and 
means for the employment of Capital and Labor, 
which hold like the blind goddess of the law the 
scales of Justice on level balance. Nothing de¬ 
moralizes manhood more than gifts. Effort is re¬ 
laxed, pride of self-reliance robbed of its nobility, 

[ 41 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

and a cringing mendacity and poverty substituted 
for it. 

According to the United States Census of 1910 the 
population of the United States was 91,972,266. 
There were 20,255,555 families, of which 17,805,845 
occupied dwellings. The average number of per¬ 
sons to dwellings was 5.2 and the average size of the 
family was 4.5. Of these 54.2 per cent occupied 
rented homes, and 45.8 per cent occupied owned 
homes. 

The above statistics give a very correct idea of the 
state of affairs in 1920, if they are proportionally 
increased 10 to 15 per cent, and show the desirability 
of the National and State governments entering 
upon the most wise and politic course of providing 
homes for all its citizens. When more than half 
of an inhabitancy have no ownership of land, no 
roof under which it may abide in sickness and in 
health, except with the consent of another, and 
that in a country where there is an abundance 
of land and building materials, it is submitted 
that the people have allowed their legislators to 
devote their energy to matters of not the greatest 
importance. 

It is herein urged that this subject of providing 
homes for homeless citizens be no longer left to in¬ 
dividual effort. It has been tried and only the 
most thoughtful and thrifty have succeeded against 
the innumerable obstacles constantly combating 
their acquisition — such as natural improvidence, 
temptation to enjoy unnecessary pleasure, want of 

[42] 


Housing of the Homeless 

proper direction, indulgence in the use of intoxi¬ 
cating drinks, etc. 

A practicable scheme is for a State or the National 
Government to issue its bonds and with the pro¬ 
ceeds acquire the land and build reasonably com¬ 
fortable and artistic fireproof houses thereon, and 
sell them at cost to the homeless on terms with 
which they can comply. 

The British Government, in its efforts to right the 
wrongs Ireland has suffered from the profiteering 
of the old system of landlordism of the last century, 
has wisely and righteously created a method for 
housing of laborers. Every locality has its Local 
Rural Council who condemn, in appropriate neigh¬ 
borhoods, usually tracts of fertile land of one acre 
in size, and on which neat and sanitary stone houses 
are built with necessary curtilages, and rented to 
laborers at a low per-cent advance on their cost, or 
sold to them on equally favorable terms. Great 
success has attended this scheme. 

This is the Socialism to which all men can sub¬ 
scribe. It ignores violent appropriation; it seeks 
the greatest good for the greatest number; it en¬ 
courages Effort, the key stone of higher life; it en¬ 
nobles all who come within its blessed influence. 
But a Socialism, robbing a brother of his Saved 
Labor, of the Capital he has earned by the sweat of 
his brow, has saved by privations that his despoiler 
has scorned; and which in the long hours of toil 
has cheered his vision as a maintenance for the 
approaching sunset of enfeebled days, and given 
[ 43 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

hope to his heart and strength to his arms, is but a 
camouflage for robbery, and must, after running its 
course of sin, end to the utter disgust of those who 
know what life means, and believe in its higher 
destiny. 

Such is the transforming power of the ownership 
of a home that overnight it will change a heartless 
and rank communist into a conservative citizen. So, 
to preserve order, to create contentment, to improve 
health, to increase longevity, the highest duty, the 
highest honor of a State, if all other agencies fail, 
should be to provide Land for Farmers and Homes 
for Workingmen, but which they will be compelled 
to pay for on fair and easy terms. 


[44] 


Building Associations and Savings Banks 


BUILDING ASSOCIATIONS, SAVINGS 
BANKS, AND GOVERNMENT BONDS 

The controlling thought which should animate all 
economic regulations ought to be absolute justice to 
all parties in interest. What an amazing generali¬ 
zation it is that Justice, this quality of Justice, in its 
application is never hurtful to any one or anything; 
but on the contrary is ever harmonious with every 
interest however divergent or apparently antagonis¬ 
tic. With this idea permeating the thought, legis¬ 
lation may be entered upon with a sense of security 
of the end justifying the means. 

This great sentiment reenforces and gives vigor to 
the conclusion that all effort to provide homes for 
every man and every woman and child north of 
the Tropic of Cancer must eventuate in social con¬ 
tentment and in the mutual regard for the rights 
of others. 

Among the agencies to be employed may be men¬ 
tioned the establishment of building associations as 
of prime importance. As usually managed they pro¬ 
duce the most beneficent results. A pleasing house 
is selected, but the price is beyond the party’s capi¬ 
tal. He applies to the association, pays what he 
has saved, and the association lends him the balance 
at reasonable rate of interest. He moves his goods 
and chattels, he takes his wife and children,—his 
[45 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

household gods, and settles under the new roof. He 
stops paying rent to his old landlord, and with 
usually only a slight increase over the rental value of 
the new home begins a life of economy and thrift, his 
heart ever cheered and his eye radiant with delight 
at each monthly payment to the association — the 
money parted with making the dear house so much 
more his own. His daily labor has become a joy, 
his privations a pleasure. Yes, more, he sees in the 
face of his life partner—satisfaction, happiness; and 
her cooperation has changed the lines of care in her 
beloved face into smiles and contentment. 

Let, therefore, our legislatures encourage the for¬ 
mation of such institutions on just and generous 
lines, so as to enable them to perform their work on 
the broad bases of charity. 

Nearly as important as building associations in 
stimulating thrift and economy are savings banks. 
They have a remarkable influence in turning a 
spender into a saver — a saver is necessarily a capi¬ 
talist— a capitalist abandons Socialism which is 
destructive to honesty — an honest man is a law 
abider — a law-abiding individual is a good citizen 
and contented man. So the self-evident conclusion 
is that the States and the National Government 
should foster savings banks organized and managed 
on lines especially designed to carry out the wise 
purposes for which they are created. But both these 
and building associations should be under the con¬ 
stant supervision of public officials to prevent them 
from oppressing their patrons, to keep them solvent, 

[46] 


Building Associations and Savings Banks 

and thus to inspire the small capitalists with confi¬ 
dence in the return of their money. 

United States and State bonds are operating in 
the same field as teachers of thrift and economy. 
Federal Farm Loans under the supervision of the 
United States Treasury Department are much to be 
praised, and a like scheme to secure urban homes to 
all persons who wish them should be created in the 
near future by Congress. 

All these and other agencies are great civilizers, 
and indeed moral institutions changing in many 
respects the nature of the man for the better, al¬ 
though not by any means working the miracle of 
transforming a miser into a philanthropist, or the 
severe master into the indulgent friend. But the 
direct and immediate effect of such agencies is 
the turning of the laborer into a capitalist. The 
possession of Capital is a desirable economic con¬ 
dition for any person, and so all men wish wealth. 
This wealth secures services which may be even des¬ 
perately important to health and life itself; it buys 
necessities at all times; it calms anxieties; it grati¬ 
fies self-esteem. 

Let there be no more of this demagogic rant 
against honest wealth—this appeal to the shiftless 
because of their numbers alone. Wealth properly 
employed is a blessing. It is only when it becomes 
an oppressor of those having less that its use should 
be restrained. Wealth in itself is no crime; if crime 
exists, it is in the brain which would use its power 
injuriously. 

[ 47 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

It will be thus seen that these pages are written in 
defense of both wealth and work. Let the wealth 
of the country be increased. Let the workingman 
have his labor so rewarded that he may soon enter 
the wealthy class. The honest capitalist is the 
laborer grown to manhood—to a noble manhood, 
robed in the garb of civic righteousness, and who 
with proud and smiling mien looks the whole world 
in the face. 


[48] 


Constitutional Power of Congress 


CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF CONGRESS 

TO LEGISLATE ON THE PURCHASE OF 
FARMS AND HOMES 

In order to avoid doubt as to the power of the 
National Legislature to pass laws aiding the citi¬ 
zens of this country to buy farms and homes it is 
only necessary to state that by express provision of 
the Federal Constitution, Article I, sec. 8, “ the Con¬ 
gress shall have power to provide for the Defense 
and General Welfare” of the United States, and 
“make all laws which shall be necessary for carry¬ 
ing into Execution the foregoing powers.” 

Under this extremely broad and wise provision 
whenever it shall appear to Congress that the gen¬ 
eral welfare of the country demands or will be 
promoted by any laws upon any subject, the con¬ 
stitutional power arises to pass them and cause them 
to be enforced. 

The decision of what is the general welfare rests 
in the judgment of Congress exclusively as the man¬ 
datory of the people. So that if at any time and 
from any cause it shall appear that the general 
welfare of the United States demands that farms 
and homes should be secured for its inhabitants, 
Congress has not only ample power to act, but 
it is made its duty to pass such laws that will en¬ 
able its good citizens to secure them. 

[49] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

This grant of power does not, however, authorize 
the uncompensated appropriation of one man’s 
property for the benefit of another, because by the 
Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, it is expressly 
provided that “ Private property shall not be taken 
for public use without just compensation.” 

The term “ General Welfare” is synonymous with 
the words “Public Use.” 


Chapter IV 
NOBILITY OF LABOR 


T HE writer of this treatise knows of no biologist 
who does not believe that the fossil men found 
in the alluvial deposits of the earth, some specimens 
of which are in the British Museum and in the 
Royal Cabinet in Paris, were, generally speaking, 
the ancestors of the artisans, scientists, and states¬ 
men of the present day, and that this extraordinary 
improvement in physical and mental development 
has been the result of Effort or Labor on the 
part of the individuals in their great struggle for 
existence. 

This contest for life involved, in the many years 
of their evolution, a constant warfare among them¬ 
selves and other species of animals to obtain an ade¬ 
quate supply of food which was always of insufficient 
amount. It required an unremittent labor to find 
their prey, to attack it successfully, and in turn to 
defend themselves against those seeking to capture 
them. It is difficult to realize what efforts this prim¬ 
itive man had to make, and how his intelligence 
must have been strained to the highest tension to 
have destroyed such animals as the megatherium and 
mylodon (each larger than the rhinoceros), the lions 
[ 5i ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

and tigers of those days when animal life was at its 
zenith, and this was accomplished without any of 
the implements or means of destruction of modern 
warfare. 

Under the stimulus to obtain food or die the 
muscles of these fighters strengthened themselves; 
their wits were sharpened for both attack and de¬ 
fense; slight improvement or modification was made 
by some; those who survived transmitted these ad¬ 
vantages by inheritance to their offspring, who in 
turn improved on them, until by accumulations 
during unknown ages they established their superi¬ 
ority over all others. 

The anxiety endured by man in civilized society 
is comparatively insignificant to that borne by those 
early progenitors of our race. 

Labor has therefore been the great instrumentality 
of nature to develop this magnificent specimen of 
the animal kingdom; it has been and still is the 
visible arm of the Creator working silently, but 
no less effectively, to turn the untutored savage 
into a reader of the stars, and a victor over 
matter. 

Can there be any higher method of life than the 
one which has wrought the marvel of bringing into 
existence this most beautiful animal world? Can 
there be any nobler rule than that employed by its 
Author which has made Man the superb animal of 
creation? 

The lords of civilization are mental and manual 
laborers. Each in his place—the one indispensable 

[ 52 ] 


Nobility of Labor 

to the other, and all unconsciously—the highest 
dignities are bestowed on Labor. Their patents of 
nobility are of equal antiquity. 

All Honor to Labor — all Dishonor to idleness 
and sloth. 


Abstinence from Intoxicating Drinks 


ABSTINENCE FROM INTOXICATING 
DRINKS 

As stated in the outset of this study one of the 
chief causes of the economic discontent of Labor is 
the inequality of wealth. If each man possessed 
nearly as much property as all other men this dead 
level would prevent the criminations of unsatisfied 
desires. 

Whatever tends to exalt Labor of necessity re¬ 
duces this inequality and discontent. The acquisi¬ 
tion of wealth requires a clear apprehension of facts 
and correct logic for its conclusions to be valuable; 
and whatever clouds the brain and renders faulty 
the judgment must necessarily place such an un¬ 
fortunate in an inferior position to his economic 
antagonist. To apply the principle, the man who 
has drunk but one ounce of alcohol loses measurably, 
until its stupefying effect has worn off, the impulse 
to move towards the accomplishment of the work he 
may have on hand — more yet, the capacity for a 
correct appreciation of the enterprise under considera¬ 
tion is impaired. Such being the effect of intoxicat¬ 
ing drinks, it is a self-evident conclusion that the 
general abstention from so deleterious a habit must, 
where Labor is concerned largely and vitally, ad¬ 
vance its equality with sober Capital; and of all 
[ 54 ] 


Abstinence from Intoxicating Drinks 

men, Labor Leaders should be the uncompromising 
advocates for prohibition. 

Some of them cry aloud for the Dignity of Labor. 
It is a noble ambition. There is no crown too exalted 
for the brow of Labor, but the world will never en¬ 
throne a drunken workman. 


[ 55 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


LABOR 

In this discussion Labor is understood to include 
all present or current Effort, mental and physical, 
as distinguished from past or saved Labor, the 
synonym for Capital. A capitalist may be a work¬ 
man as well as capitalist; if he is actively engaged in 
the use of his Capital he is necessarily a workman. 
So a laborer who possesses no more than his own 
tools is a capitalist to that extent. It will be obvious, 
therefore, in the economic system of modern life 
that Capital and Labor are each the constant con¬ 
comitants of the other. The workman must have a 
house to shelter him and his family. Herein he 
enjoys Saved Labor, for the dwelling is Capital. His 
body calls for clothing; this is produced by other 
laborers. Take the instance of cotton cloth so 
universally used for garments, and there will be 
found not less than twenty major processes, starting 
with the fertilizer manufacturer and planter and 
ending with the final sale to the consumer, which 
have employed hundreds of workmen to produce the 
simplest and most inexpensive fabrics. These work¬ 
men also must have food, heat, light, shoes, and other 
things. For these they are directly dependent on 
the labor of other men. It is impossible to enumerate 
all the contributing and interlocking agencies going 

[56] 


Labor 


to make the life of the laborer existent and sanitary, 
and as dependent one on the other as the heart of the 
animal is on its lungs, and vice versa . Our modern 
life is all wonderfully complex and reciprocally 
helpful, and again, like the organs and functions of 
the body in their assistance the one to the other, 
has for its unified effort a state of elevated society 
wherein the faculties of humanity have an oppor¬ 
tunity for the highest expansion. No man lives 
unto himself. 

The receipt of favors imposes obligations. The 
workman who accepts food which a farmer has 
grown has no right to say to this farmer, “ I will not 
weave the cloth for your coat.” Each is under a 
moral duty to reciprocate in the production of the 
necessities of the other. In one sense the labor of 
each belongs to himself, and in another sense it does 
not. It belongs to each individually to provide 
for the necessities of life, and such reasonable sur¬ 
plus to be saved to take care of him in sickness and 
old age, but it does not belong to him to exact of 
another what will prevent such other from securing 
also for himself the necessities of life and such rea¬ 
sonable surplus to be saved to take care of him in 
sickness and old age. So the conclusion may be 
considered as true that the workingman has no 
absolute right even in his own labor when it affects 
his co-laborer. Indeed there is no absolute right in 
any kind of property, either Capital or Labor, and 
no workman has the moral right to exact such prices 
for the products of his labor which are greater than 
[ 57 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

such workman is paying for those things made by 
others and which he is using for his comfort or 
welfare. 

Now in addition to any contract between Capital 
and Labor for the production of any class of articles 
of commercial value there is necessarily another 
party to the contract, and that is the Buyer. By 
this word is meant the great class of consumers who 
stand ready to buy the product of the contract be¬ 
tween Capital and Labor, and as a matter of neces¬ 
sity includes both capitalists and laborers engaged 
in other productions or enterprises. 

Let us pause for a moment to understand what 
these words Capital and Labor really signify in 
their commercial sense. Capital, it is repeated, to 
be of value in economics, must be actively employed 
in the production of something desirable. A sack 
of ten thousand dollars in gold buried in the ground 
has no value in the business acceptation of the word. 
It might as well have not been mined or minted as 
long as it is hidden. It has, however, a potential 
value, for it may be dug up, and when engaged in 
paying for current labor becomes valuable and per¬ 
forms its highest and legitimate function. 

So with Labor. If the workingman with strong 
muscles and nerves sits by his fire, passing his days 
in idleness, or works at producing something of no 
value to himself or which no one wants, his muscles 
may have a potentiality, but until he makes some¬ 
thing contributing to the gratification of the wants of 
mankind his labor is valueless. Accordingly it will 

[58] 


Labor 


be seen that both Capital and Labor must introduce 
into their contracts a third party, the Buyer, and 
neither their possessions nor productions are of value 
without this Buyer. From these premises it follows 
that Capital and Labor have no right to make any 
contract between themselves which ignores this 
Buyer or Consumer. 

Prices for the necessities of life should not be fixed 
so high by either Capital or Labor, or by both of 
them in combination, to prevent Buyers, or any class 
of them, from being able on their part to obtain the 
necessities of life and to accumulate by thrift and 
prudence such reasonable surplus to take care of 
them in sickness and old age. In other words, Buy¬ 
ers should have the same rights as the other two 
parties to the contract. And this in turn imposes 
the reciprocal obligation on Buyers, and the State 
as their organized representative, not to combine 
against either Capital or Labor to lower or in any 
manner reduce the value of the property of either 
of their co-partners below the fair price they should 
enjoy. 

This broad view of these economic principles shows 
how strikingly harmonious the rights of all three, 
one to the other, are in their essential elements. 
Morally they stand as equals on the same platform 
of equity and justice. Each must accord to the 
other an equal measure of the rights and privileges 
it receives, and in according these rights each is 
blessed with highest prosperity and development. 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS 

The determination of the justifiable right of 
Labor to strike and of Capital to lock out employes 
in a particular instance is far from being a simple 
matter, because very different and controlling cir¬ 
cumstances may be involved in each case. 

i. The law of Self-defense should enter into the 
consideration as a vital factor. Self-defense is an 
imperious instinct of animals and overrides all re¬ 
straining rules. It is recognized by municipal laws in 
all countries. One is justified in killing any man or 
animal seeking to kill him. Incidental to the right 
to live there are many circumstances the violation 
of which although not immediately producing fatal 
results yet tend to the destruction of the comfort 
and happiness of living, and parties affected by them 
should defend themselves as best they can against 
their malign influence. 

If this principle is applied to economics, it follows 
that wherever there are relations really and truly 
inequitable, unfair, or injurious to others, such per¬ 
sons improperly affected have the right, aye, it is 
their duty, to remedy them by all the lawful means 
within their power. 

This conclusion applies to strikes and lockouts 
with equal vigor. It applies to the laborer or capi- 
[ 60 ] 


Strikes and Lockouts 


talist as an individual and acting solely by himself; 
it applies when either class combines with associates 
to make their united force more effective. To sub¬ 
mit to injustice of any character, either to wages too 
low, or to hours of labor injuriously exhausting, or to 
unsanitary conditions, is physically, mentally, and 
morally degenerating; on the other hand to grant 
exactions which are unfair or tyrannical is repressive 
to the development of business and to the general 
good of all. 

Unfortunately there is such a universal tendency 
to take the advantage whenever circumstances will 
permit. It is this spirit of avariciousness, this grasp¬ 
ing for more than one is entitled to, this injustice 
forever upsetting the world, that causes strikes and 
lockouts and makes them vicious; and this vicious¬ 
ness invariably defeats in the end its own object, for 
arises in its majesty, over this troubled sea of sel¬ 
fish desires and efforts, the magnificent, the eternal 
law of God, that justice, and justice alone, shall 
prevail and endure. 

A strike of workingmen is contemplated at this 
writing by some thousands of their number because 
of the abolition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, 
enacted in accordance with law; and another, as a 
protest against the punishment of one of their num¬ 
ber who after a trial by the constituted authorities 
has been found guilty of murder. Each of them 
is vicious in every sense. Both are the results of 
ignorance or passion on the part of the strikers, are 
beyond the legitimate jurisdiction of Labor, and will 
[61 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

be found, if carried out, to revert in the end to the 
injury of the strikers. 

No animal can sin against his body without suf¬ 
fering the consequences, no man can sin against the 
moral law of his being, except the sin will find him 
out, and the same law is equally potent against all 
financial and economic offenses. 

Ah! if men could only learn this great truth—there 
is only one path of safety, one path to success, and 
that is the golden rule of Christ, for men to do to 
others as they would be done by. 

2. And this is all harmonious with the other 
great moral and municipal law prohibiting the use 
of one’s own to the detriment of another. 

Again, wonderful it is how just laws are ever in 
sympathy and harmony with all other just laws. 
There is never any disagreement, any conflict. In 
nature the laws of sound do not interfere with the 
laws of sight, nor gravitation with electricity, nor 
those of heat with force. To scientists who have 
studied them, how the wisdom, the power of the 
Creator, must appear as a great Governor ruling 
all nature. 

This moral law commands the capitalist not to 
use his wealth to the injury of Labor; it commands 
the laborer to demand his full rights, aye, to the last 
dollar his wage is worth, to the last hour for rest 
and the pleasure of living, but not to destroy what 
he has not created. 

It is often cried aloud by the laborer, “My labor 
is my own, I will work or not as I please”; and by the 
[62] 


Strikes and Lockouts 

capitalist, “My wealth is my own, I will spend it as 
it suits me.” 

Not so — Labor and Capital. You live in a 
society. That society makes your labor and capital 
valuable. Without that society, it would be worth 
nothing to you. Society is a party to the contract 
whether you agree or not, and as such it has those 
rights which it contributes. For Labor to stop pro¬ 
duction without considering the rights of society, 
that is, the rights of other men the products of whose 
labor it is enjoying, is wrong. For Capital to close 
its factories without reference to its effect on others 
who make its Capital valuable, is wrong. 

The right to strike is based on nobler and higher 
grounds than ownership of labor. It is founded on 
that great principle of Self-defense understood in 
its broadest application. Instead of the strike and 
the lockout being deplored economic agencies, let 
us commend them if they are righteous; let us con¬ 
demn them if they are not the instrumentalities 
of justice. 

Our Revolutionary War with Great Britain was a 
strike — a holy strike, and behold the munificent 
results of a just strike. 


Capital, Labor, and the Siztz 


LABOR UNIONS 

Where the objects of Labor Unions are confined 
solely to advancing wages and decreasing the hours 
of labor, the institutions fail in their noblest op¬ 
portunities. They become sordid instrumentalities 
ranking on a par with the miserly capitalist. 

Of all the fraternal organizations their highest 
ambition should be not only the economic better¬ 
ment but the moral and social advancement of their 
members. They should be the teachers of integrity 
of character among workmen, demanding Justice 
for themselves, returning Justice to others; the ad¬ 
vocates of all that is worthy and noble and good; 
the enemy of vice and lawlessness; enriching their 
members with the deep happiness which springs 
from correct conduct, for be it known there is no 
joy on this earth equal to that which is bom of 
righteous conduct, and no sorrow so poignant as 
the sting of sin. 

And what would be the sure effect of such nobility? 
Labor Unions heretofore despised and feared by 
capitalists as organizations designed to take ad¬ 
vantage whenever the opportunity presented itself; 
cruel; regardless of the injury they inflict on stran¬ 
gers; supremely selfish; sometimes unreasonable 
and ignorant in their demands, — these same Unions 

[64] 


Labor Unions 


would be hailed as a blessing to industry, as a loyal 
and just co-partner in the work of the world, and 
more efficient in securing proper and remunerative 
wages for Labor than ever their former antagonism 
to Capital had accomplished. 

It must, however, be admitted that Labor Unions 
have not yet advanced to this desirable position. 
They have one particular sin, unatoned, against 
their own members, and that is, there is usually no 
classification of workmanship — the ignorant, the 
lazy, the inefficient workman is awarded the same 
wage as the honest and capable mechanic. They 
demand justice for labor and refuse justice to labor. 
They rob the competent of his work and skill with¬ 
out consideration, and give it to the incompetent 
who pays nothing for the stolen goods. They de¬ 
moralize both. 

There need be no fear that Unions will be injured 
by paying every man what he deserves, or that 
unskillful workmen will abandon them. Of all, the 
incompetent most need their support. The honest, 
capable mechanics can take care of themselves— 
the inefficient from their larger numbers vote down 
their brothers’ wage to a general average. 

A correct policy would seem to demand that the 
Unions should classify their members into probably 
three divisions: 

1. Expert and skillful workmen producing the 
largest results and best products. 

2. Fairly skillful workmen with medium results. 

3. Inferior, yet passable workmen. 

[65] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

The system of paying the incompetent more than 
he deserves and the competent workman less, is an 
injury also to the employer. It is like all unjust 
conduct, it harms all who come within its pernicious 
sway. 

It is possible that employers may correct to some 
extent the injury they receive by paying in addition 
to the regular scale of wage set by Unions a bonus 
for increased production of superior quality. This 
method of correcting the evil may be considered 
by some to be too onerous on Capital, but this view 
leaves out of consideration the fact that the wages 
of workmen are frequently less than the other ex¬ 
penses of manufacture — such as the capital in¬ 
vested in factories, machinery, their obsolescence, 
agents for sale of products, interest on money bor¬ 
rowed, executive administration, and other items, 
and any extra consideration paid workmen for a 
higher class of articles made, and for larger amounts 
of such superior workmanship, would in many in¬ 
stances be the most profitable investment the em¬ 
ployer could make. In such cases he would be reim¬ 
bursed by the increased output, and his sales quickly 
enlarged by their superior quality. 

How far the jealousy of the other workmen would 
be aroused, and an appeal to their Union be made 
to increase generally the price of work to the extent 
of the bonuses paid, might depend somewhat on the 
manner in which the premiums for good work were 
distributed — if to a unit of workers there would be 
much less danger than to individuals. 

[ 66 ] 


Labor Unions 


But all of this matter of quantity and quality of 
products, it is hoped, may come to be fairly and 
equitably administered by the compulsory arbitra¬ 
tion tribunals set forth particularly in Chapter 
Fifteenth which follows. 

The economic and moral effect of impartial ratings 
would be highly beneficial to the inapt and sluggards. 
As it stands there is no inducement for effort to im¬ 
prove, and the workmen themselves unconsciously 
suffer a baneful influence. 

The writer makes two predictions to whom it may 
concern: 

1. That organized Labor will never settle its 
contest with Capital, nor attain the influence in the 
State to which its numbers entitle it, unless it purges 
itself of injustice to Capital, its fellow members, and 
the public. 

2 . On the other hand, that organized Labor will, 
in exact proportion to the nobility of its principles 
and their enforcement, to its justice to all things 
and to all men, become the ruling power of the 
State and of the world. 

The future belongs to itself, and offers dominion 
beyond compare. 

Let us watch the horizon for the coming of some 
great Captain who will lead these soldiers of Labor 
to their position in society and the State, not by 
their numbers, nor by Bolshevik murder and theft, 
but by their integrity and honor. 


[67] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


RESPONSIBILITY OF LABOR LEADERS 
AND CAPITALISTS 

In civilized communities where the activity of 
Effort accomplishes great things, and in consequence 
of which millions are employed in the use of wealth, 
the responsibility of the leaders of Labor and Capital 
is enormous. A decision by a number of capitalists 
to refrain from the use of their wealth, or their credit, 
when the law of Supply and Demand warrants the 
expansion of business and not its retraction, affects 
the well-being and happiness not only of labor em¬ 
ployed in the specific production of the articles man¬ 
ufactured by it, but also that of the vast horde of 
distributors and consumers. So the declaration of a 
strike by Labor when the profits of the work on 
which it is engaged do not warrant an increase of 
wages, or a demand for some incidental and sup¬ 
posed advantage affecting a part of a number of 
workmen and which might be remedied by the ex¬ 
hibition of a conciliatory spirit, or for other causes 
not of real value, a great injury is inflicted upon 
itself, and the time lost to these men is never re¬ 
gained. Indeed, time is the most evanescent com¬ 
modity owned by mankind. It is ours at the mo¬ 
ment — while it is passing — but passed it is gone 
forever. It belongs to everyone — it is as free as 
[ 68 ] 


Labor Leaders and Capitalists 

the air we breathe. We are as recklessly extravagant 
with it as the Prodigal Son was with his heritage. 
No note is taken of it, except by its loss. The future 
is its lamenting sufferer. 

There is probably no better way for either capi¬ 
talists or labor leaders to proceed than to open a 
ledger, strike a line down the center of the page, and 
on one side write all the arguments for a strike, 
and on the other side all the probable losses to accrue 
from it, and with this sheet before their eyes esti¬ 
mate the apparent advantage of the one course over 
the other. The capitalist from personal interest 
will be apt to make as unbiased an estimate as his 
knowledge of the facts will admit, but labor leaders 
sometimes allow their ambitions and a determina¬ 
tion to rule to influence their decisions. 

For the lockout or the strike to be justifiable 
every unworthy motive must be rigorously excluded, 
such as avarice or revenge on the part of wealth, 
and excess of wage beyond the law of Supply and 
Demand by Labor, or the determination to unduly 
extend its power. 

It will be seen again that the philosophy of this 
discussion is at every sentence endeavoring to bring 
forward the great idea of Justice. Justice to each 
side of every controversy. Justice to Saved Labor, 
Justice to Current Labor. Justice, be it said with 
reverence, is a child of God. It springs from the 
Eternal Bosom of the Deity, and has the attribute 
of ever blessing and never injuring. 

The workingman, if he thinks seriously of the above 

[69] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

noble idealism, will agree that Justice in the abstract 
is all right, but his good common sense will not be 
slow in asking, What do you mean by Justice? That 
is a very indefinite term, and what may be just in 
one case may be rank injustice in another. 

Define Justice, if you please. 


[ 7 °] 


Minimum Wage 


MINIMUM WAGE 

Economic Justice to the Manual Worker de¬ 
mands that his labor should not be considered as a 
commodity for sale. Man is a composite animal 
embracing intellectual and emotional qualities. 
They enter into all the acts of his life, and modify 
the products of his thoughts and the works of his 
hands. The methodical thinker will deliver his 
tasks well joined and of accurate construction. The 
imaginative mind will incorporate insensibly beauty 
in its productions. The man is a unit and cannot 
divorce himself from his nature. His labor is the 
product of his mind as much as the poem of 
“Paradise Lost ” was a part of the intelligence of 
Milton. 

When the workman delivers to his employer the 
electric motor he has made, it is then a commodity — 
but no more than the novel, “ David Copperfield,” 
was when Dickens handed its manuscript to his 
publisher. The distinction between the maker of the 
motor and the motor itself is not to be overlooked. 
The one is living intelligence, the other inanimate 
matter. So that when the economist approaches 
the subject of just compensation for labor, he meets 
the element of manhood — manhood with all the 
necessities of life, the sensibilities of the emotions, 

[71 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

with all the yearnings of an existence possessed by 
the rich and the favored of this earth. 

What, therefore, is Justice to this manual worker, 
this fellow man? Shall he be considered as a mem¬ 
ber of the human family, or only an animal that 
owns no home, hunts for its daily food, starts the 
springtime with nothing and ends the year poor and 
thin, that begets its species and dies? 

Alas for an economic system, if this is all it offers 
for a whole life spent at labor! 

The squirrel has his store for winter, the fox his 
warm den among the rocks to live and breed in, 
and the bear sleeps undisturbed in his hollow tree 
until the snows melt under the rays of the sun. Is 
man, our fellow man, poorer than these creatures? 

Justice declares that the minimum wage of a 
laborer who is 

1. An upright, earnest, and conscientious worker; 

2. Reasonably prudent in the expenditure of his 
earnings, buying always the necessaries of life for 
himself and family, and indulging in proper recrea¬ 
tions and pleasures likely to be conducive to health 
of mind and body; 

3. Who avails himself of the well-known aids of 
building associations, savings banks, and United 
States or State bonds; but who on the other hand, 

4. Does not waste his wages on intoxicating 
drinks or other unnecessary extravagances; 

5. Is not indolent, lazy, or frivolous, or will not 
work seriously at any labor; 

6. Is not either mentally or physically incapaci- 

[72] 


Minimum Wage 

tated to perform the ordinary amount of labor 
usually required; 

should be an amount that, when he attains the age 
of thirty-five years, if an urban workingman, he will 
be the possessor of a home dwelling of respectable 
appearance and conveniences suitable for his stand¬ 
ard of living, or of adequate funds with which to 
buy it; and at the age of fifty years, of sufficient 
additional capital that the returns from its invest¬ 
ment will fairly support him and those of his family 
who are then dependents. 

The accomplishment of this most desirable end 
is not an insurmountable task and may be secured, 
if the workingman would save regularly the small 
sum of fifty cents a day and deposit it with some re¬ 
sponsible building association at 5 per cent interest, 
leaving it to be compounded semi-annually, his 
fortune would at the end of fifteen years amount 
to $3,960, a sum sufficient to buy a comfortable and 
pleasant home. If the home was bought and oc¬ 
cupied and he continued to deposit with the asso¬ 
ciation one dollar a day (being a continuation of 
the original saving of fifty cents a day, and the esti¬ 
mated rental value of the house, now Capital, that 
is, fifty cents a day, which he no longer pays to a 
landlord), his credit at the end of another fifteen 
years would equal $7,921. With the ownership of 
his home, and this last sum invested at 5 per cent, 
he would have a fortune somewhat adequate to 
keep want from his door. 

The prospects of a young man working on a farm 

1 73 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

are equally as good. If he would save from his 
wages the sum of twenty-eight cents a day, starting 
at twenty years of age and compounding it in a 
building association at 5 per cent semi-annually, 
he would at the age of forty-five have $4,885 to 
his credit, adequate to buy an improved farm of 
fifty acres of fertile land with the necessary build¬ 
ings and stock, and with his youth and health still 
good the future would have a smiling aspect for him. 

The above scheme represents the minimum result 
to which a worthy citizen who spends his life at 
labor is entitled, and inasmuch as Society is a party 
to every labor contract, it should assume and per¬ 
form its duty to that end, because it is enjoying 
the benefits of the contract, namely, the use of the 
articles manufactured or brought into existence by 
such labor. 

Think for a moment what Labor with the aid of 
Capital does for everyone. It builds the houses 
wherein they shelter themselves; it constructs roads 
making the carrying of necessities possible to every 
hamlet; it tills the land and produces food and 
clothing; in a word, it enables mankind to live and 
enjoy its life. 

With the enjoyment of such benefits produced by 
the efforts of others, Society has no right to fold 
quietly its arms and say it is no concern of mine 
that Labor shall be properly recompensed. Society 
is in duty bound to pay the proper price for the 
articles it consumes, and this duty morally com¬ 
pels it to secure to honest Labor its proper reward, 

[74] 


Minimum Wage 


and to such an extent that, if the law of Supply and 
Demand will not bring the above minimum wage 
to the industrious and thrifty workingman, then it is 
the duty of the State as the representative of Society 
to establish and fix the price of labor at such sums 
as will produce this humane and reasonable result. 

But while in some cases the State should become 
the active advocate of Labor, even if need be a 
militant for its rights, it is not less its duty to pro¬ 
tect Capital from any undue oppression by organized 
Labor. Again Society is a party to the contract. 
It is interested in bridging the rivers of the country; 
in the erection of factories; in the manufacture of 
every article of commerce; in everything which 
Labor fashions. While it is its highest duty to re¬ 
quire Labor to be paid its just price, it is also no 
less a duty that Society should not pay in excess 
of the just price — whether it is distributed among 
workingmen or swells the coffers of the rich. The 
duty in each case is equally solemn. The scales of 
Justice should be held at an absolute level between 
Capital and Labor and the People. 


[75 ] 


Chapter V 

SUPPLY AND DEMAND 


T HE correct application of the law of Supply 
and Demand is often an intricate matter. It 
pervades the employment of Capital from the booth 
by the wayside, supplying pedestrians with a cheap 
lunch of sandwiches and coffee to the building 
and equipment of transcontinental railroads; it reg¬ 
ulates the wages of the hodman who carries the 
bricks and mortar and the remuneration of the archi¬ 
tect who has designed the palace; it fixes the price 
the public shall pay for its stockings and the millions 
of barrels of flour it will consume. On the wise ap¬ 
plication of this law depends success or failure to 
the individual. In every manner in which its 
operations maybe viewed they work to the general 
good. 

i. It stimulates the production of what is needed, 
and hinders the bringing into existence the useless 
and unprofitable. 

2. It is the parent of Effort and private Initiative 
and is in exact accord with the basic principles of 
human conduct and progress. 

3. It is conducive to fair wages and proper return 
for the employment of Capital. 

[76] 


Supply and Demand 

4. It establishes the price of necessities to the 
consumer to a level profitable to both Capital and 
Labor. 

5. It prevents fraud, bribery, and avarice. 

6. It is the only honest and just law of finance 
and commerce, and puts the capitalist, the working¬ 
man, and the public on an equal basis. 

7. By its own action it corrects all economic evils. 
The price of money when too high, it lowers; the 
price of labor when too low, it raises. It is the great¬ 
est regulator known to economics, unerring and 
ceaseless in its silent workings, like a mighty engine 
noiselessly at work; but disturb its rotation, it 
destroys all that dare oppose its operation. Mil¬ 
lions of financial failures mark the paths of men 
who have disregarded its admonitions. 

There may be a few instances where the principle 
cannot be applied — as in the sudden declaration 
of war when the whole energy of the people must be 
concentrated on meeting the foe. Time, the great 
element of time to be saved has to be met, and time 
like heat is costly. The greater the urgency the 
higher the price, and in justice should be. Men are 
prompt to take advantage of this situation, both 
capitalist and workman, one not more than the other 
according to their opportunities. Out of this situa¬ 
tion arises profiteering which is understood to be an 
unconscionable advantage resulting from abnormal 
circumstances. This matter of profiteering is a 
very universal sin, and frequently those not hav¬ 
ing the chance to apply it are the loudest in its 

[ 77 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

denunciation. Men as a rule have about the 
same morality, neither more nor less than their 
fellows. 

Nothing will take the place of the ordinary trans¬ 
action of business, wherein each man depends on 
his own efforts for success and produces or manu¬ 
factures what he thinks will sell quickest at the 
highest price, and he buying in the market of the 
lowest price. This is the law of his being — it is his 
heart — universal in time and place. 

The path of wisdom, therefore, is for the State to 
interfere as little as possible with this human con¬ 
duct. It cannot change men by law or by contract. 
Let the State withdraw from works which may be 
successfully carried on by individuals; let it foster 
private enterprise; and inasmuch as private enter¬ 
prise can in innumerable cases be better employed by 
association of individuals and corporate wealth, let 
corporations be made legal and encouraged where 
their objects are commendable and honest. But 
right here, in consequence of the utter selfishness of 
mankind, there should go pari passu strictly effi¬ 
cient laws, and proper State bureaus of investiga¬ 
tion in order to prevent both individuals and cor¬ 
porations from: 

1. Deceiving the public in any manner as to mat¬ 
ters relating to their enterprises. 

2. All acts and combinations having for their 
effect the violation of the law of Supply and Demand. 

There is nothing more timid of undue restraint 
than Capital. Give it the greatest honest freedom. 

[78] 


Supply and Demand 

Let it expand its wings and, like the albatross and its 
congeners which traverse the seas, it will carry pre¬ 
cious burdens to every land, enriching the seller 
and the buyer, and enlightening the world with the 
civilization of wealth and morality. 


Capital, Labor, and the State 


COMBINATIONS OF CAPITALISTS AND 
LABOR UNIONS 

If what is advanced in this treatise in regard to 
the great public benefit arising from capitalists 
using their wealth in the employment of Labor, and 
of workingmen demanding full wages, be correct, 
it follows necessarily that each class may under 
lawful circumstances combine to make more efficient 
the program it seeks to carry out. 

The embarkment of Capital in beneficial enter¬ 
prises is certainly a desirable policy, and when there 
is a demand for results sought to be accomplished, 
its efforts should be encouraged not only by remun¬ 
erating those who have undertaken to gratify the 
need of society, but such profits should be allowed 
as will encourage wealth to buckle on its wings and 
take the risk of venturesome flights, and inasmuch 
as unity and combination of aggregated capital 
are much more efficient in every way than individual 
effort, from the employment of larger amounts of 
money, the undertaking of more extensive enter¬ 
prises, and the engaging of more minds to direct its 
application, greater and more beneficent results 
may be expected. Corporations are of great im¬ 
portance in this regard. 

So with Labor. It has been shown heretofore to 
be the duty of Labor to enter upon strikes when op- 

[80] 


Capitalists and Labor Unions 

pressed beyond forebearance, for with both Capital 
and Labor the right of Self-defense exists in its full 
vigor. Men should not be compelled to work when 
their wages keep them as peons with no prospect of 
betterment, no hope in the future except continued 
slavery, and to make their protest efficient the right 
to strike exists, if no other means presents itself for 
relief. From this the deduction is conclusive, the 
same as in the case of Capital, that as combinations 
of identical interests are always more efficient than 
isolated and sporadic efforts, Labor not only has 
the right but it is its duty to aggregate its power in 
unions or other organizations. 

Labor leaders may be shocked at the logic of the 
statement authorizing the combination of capital¬ 
ists for fear of its influence impairing the autocracy 
of Labor, but their repugnance is not greater than 
the fight made by Capital to prevent the organiza¬ 
tion of labor unions. Each class is inspired with 
the apprehension of united effort being marshaled 
against its interests. 

So far this doctrine is all very ideally beautiful, 
and if each party confined itself to only equitable 
demands, could put its heel on the ever-present 
selfishness of the human heart, the millenium might 
be thought to be approaching. But in practice the 
moment either Capital or Labor perceives it has 
the strength, and one is no worse or better than the 
other, instantly avariciousness is bom and demands 
are made of the other side which are often unjust, 
even oppressive and confiscatory. 

[ 81 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

There is no help for this in the present state of 
business. It will continue as long as the heart of 
man remains ungoverned by either moral sentiment 
or municipal regulation. Municipal regulation is in 
the power of the State, as will be shown herein later, 
and should be exerted when necessary to restrain 
injustice or fraud by either Capital or Labor. 

Courts, or commissions, or compulsory arbitra¬ 
tion boards should be established by Congress, and 
the several States, to adjudicate all questions of 
dispute between Capital and Labor and Buyers. 
Congress has already created an Interstate Com¬ 
mission and the States have appointed Utility 
Boards. These are most excellent adjuncts to 
restrain corporate abuses. There should be courts 
or compulsory arbitration to regulate the rewards 
of Labor as well as of Capital. It is a flagrant in¬ 
justice to adjudicate on “Saved Labor” and allow 
“Current Labor” unrestrained excesses. They are 
both essential to civilization, and they may be both 
vehicles of oppression. The general welfare of the 
country is at this moment suffering from the failure 
of the law-making authorities to have entered upon 
the consideration of the establishment of wise and 
efficient tribunals with adequate power to regulates 
all the reciprocal rights of Capital and Labor and 
Buyers on honest, broad, and remunerative bases to 
each. 

Instead of such provisions of law likely to be to the 
detriment of either Capital or Labor, if they are 
administered on the sound principles that Capital 
[82] 


Capitalists and Labor Unions 

must be rewarded adequately and Labor paid at 
least such sum as to secure the workingman a home, 
according to his standard of living at middle age, 
and a competency at the beginning of the decline of 
his usefulness adequate to support him and family 
against penury and want, they would be found to 
bring the greatest blessing that Labor has ever 
enjoyed. 

There is nothing needed so much by Labor as a 
tribunal to fix and enforce an honest wage. At this 
time it is out in an open sea with no land or pharos 
in sight to direct its movement. At one time stirred 
to an ill-advised strike, then because of the mistake 
returning to the work benches in a worse condition 
than before; or organizing and demanding impossible 
conditions to such an extent as to scare Capital 
from investment — ignorant of the demand for the 
goods it manufactures, of their cost, of the profits 
made by the employer, and the price for which they 
should be sold. Generally all Labor knows is that 
its wages are unsatisfactory, sometimes really in¬ 
sufficient and sometimes purely imaginatively so. 

How much better for an arbitration tribunal com¬ 
posed of capitalists and workingmen and consumers 
to be vested with authority to examine thoroughly 
and impartially all the important facts of the case 
with power to decree and to enforce its judgment. 

These unhappy days of industrial unrest cannot 
endure forever. Some relief, some scheme to quiet 
heart-burning desires must be adopted based on 
principles of equal justice to all. 

[83 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

Courts of judicature settle contentions between 
men to the great advantage of litigants, and there 
is no reason why other tribunals, particularly com¬ 
pulsory arbitration boards, either general or special, 
suitable for the jurisdiction they are to administer, 
should not be brought into existence to mete out 
justice in economic disputes with the State to en¬ 
force their findings. 


[84] 


Chapter VI 

GOVERNMENTAL RESTRAINT 


Y ET the selfishness of Capital must be restrained 
within honest limits. There is no more diffi¬ 
cult subject for the economist to solve than to decide 
on the wise mean whereby private initiative will 
not be restricted, but rather encouraged, and at the 
same time fraud upon the public prevented. 

Capital must be rewarded to secure its investment. 
Its investment is followed by a most important 
result, namely, the employment of labor which 
brings into existence all the wondrous things of 
civilization. Ill fares the land where the profits, 
honest profits of Capital, are repressed. And what 
are the honest profits to which Capital is entitled? 

i. In businesses well established, enjoying a 
monopoly, such as railroads, gas, electric-light and 
power companies, and where the minimum of risk 
exists, but which require constant supervision in 
their management, amendment, and improvement 
in the service they furnish, the lowest profit will be 
adequate to attract the investment of Capital. 
This amount may be fixed at about seven per 
cent per annum on the fair value of the enterprise. 

2. But the building of a railroad and the estab- 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

lishment of gas and electric-light and power fac¬ 
tories and other adventures in a new country where 
years may pass before they become profitable, if 
ever, Capital must be offered profits in proportion 
to the risks assumed in order to secure its invest¬ 
ment. The leaders of such enterprises must have 
the entrancing vision of great wealth to awaken them 
to the investment of their capital, in peril of its loss, 
before they will embark in such schemes. And this 
is their just due. Does anyone suppose that the 
great transcontinental railroads of the United States 
and their hundreds of feeders would have been un¬ 
dertaken at the early period they were built if the 
Interstate Commerce Commission had been in 
existence at the time with its powers to limit fares 
and freight, to establish the service to be rendered, 
to ignore the risks to be taken by Capital in allowing 
only a meager compensation for the money invested? 
The development of this country would have been 
retarded if the policy ruling at this day had been 
in existence in its earlier formative manhood. The 
present generation can hardly conceive of the wild 
rush of internal improvements subsequent to 1866. 
Hundreds of thousands of emigrants were landed 
annually on our shores with ready employment, im¬ 
mense tracts of land were subdivided into home¬ 
steads—villages and towns sprang up overnight— 
the whole country was humming with the noises of 
factories, because Capital was unrestrained and 
private initiative encouraged. 

It is not denied that abuses attended many, if not 

[ 86 ] 


Governmental Restraint 


most, of these enterprises in the issuance of watered 
stock, floating of bonds in excess of values, the pro¬ 
ceeds pocketed by the promoters of the schemes, 
paying of enormous and often unmerited salaries 
to the chief actors and the making of millionaires 
of those within the ring, yet notwithstanding all 
these acts the country was rapidly developed and it 
became a great nation and world power before it was 
realized. 

There is no doubt that some governmental re¬ 
straint, both Federal and State, is necessary and 
healthful, but the exercise of its power should be 
watched by the public with jealous care, and any 
tendency to restrain initiative or to repress the use 
of Capital frowned upon promptly, and those offi¬ 
cials who by education or temperament show them¬ 
selves antagonistic to the just remuneration of 
Capital for its risks and use should be removed from 
the positions of trust they occupy. 

Naturally many users of the utilities will oppose 
full compensation for the accommodations provided 
because it will increase directly their expenses, for¬ 
getting that eventually they will suffer more if such 
corporations for want of funds cannot continue, 
or can render only indifferent service. Such ob¬ 
jections should be heeded no more than the false 
demands of the managers of the enterprises. 


ts 7 ] 


Chapter VII 
BUYERS 

I ^OR Capital or Labor to be recompensed for its 
outlay both must be engaged on work that 
brings into existence something that other men want, 
that is, there must be Buyers. Hence it follows, 
there are three parties to every economic contract, 
and neither one of them can be dispensed with, nor 
is it desirable for either one of them to be omitted 
from the transaction. 

Before the capitalist invests his wealth he con¬ 
siders the laborer who will perform the work and 
the Buyers who will purchase the finished product. 
Before the laborer selects a trade he estimates as 
well as he can the Capital employed in it and the 
Buyers who will want the articles he produces. 
Before the Buyers determine to acquire any article 
—house, shoes, or other thing—he calculates the 
cost, composed of the return on the Capital invested 
and the wages of the workmen. Now inasmuch as 
each one of the three parties is endeavoring to sell 
in the highest market and to buy in the lowest, the 
desires of the three are in some respects in direct 
conflict with one another. 

If unrestrained, the selfishness of humanity will 

[ 88 ] 


Buyers 

surely enter into the transaction, and one party, or 
two out of the three, will take advantage of the 
unfavorable condition of the other to defend itself 
against some exorbitant demand. Of course this 
is wrong; it is in violation of the golden rule that 
one should do to his neighbor as he would be done 
by, and in the end of a long series of transactions, 
or of a lifetime, it will work, by some method or 
providence not understood, to the ultimate failure 
of the unconscionable party. 

In commerce this temporary advantage of either 
party to the contract does not endure indefinitely — 
the great law of Supply and Demand soon comes into 
play and corrects the inequality. 


[89] 


Chapter VIII 
THE STATE 


T O the present writing the discussion of the 
rights of Capital, Labor, and Buyers has been 
narrowed to their contracts between themselves. 
But the commercial experience of the world has 
shown occasions to have arisen wherein neither of 
these elements has been able to control the eco¬ 
nomic situation within the influence of the Supply 
and Demand. For example, capitalists controlling 
the organization or management of corporations 
have been guilty of issuing stock and bonds far in 
excess of the true value of the franchise and physi¬ 
cal property represented, and therefore in order to 
pay dividends and interest on such watered securities 
have charged excessively for the services rendered. 
So Labor, by reason of the power of association, has 
through unions demanded and received in some 
cases wages in excess of the Supply and Demand of 
the articles it manufactured, or the work performed, 
and again Buyers have united to depress the legiti¬ 
mate price of goods to the injury of both Capital 
and Labor. 

These, like all other acts founded on selfishness, 
on injustice, on the taking of unfair advantages of 

[90] 


The State 


the situation of the other parties to the contract, 
should be restrained, for no one has the right to use 
his own, his own in any sense, to the detriment of 
another, and when the circumstances become from 
any cause unmanageable by the others, and particu¬ 
larly when such abuses affect the public as a mass, 
then and not until then the people in their organized 
capacity, namely, the State, should interfere with 
power to correct the wrong no matter from what 
cause it may arise. 

For what is the State and what are its legitimate 
functions? 

When a large number of people inhabiting usually 
the same territory form themselves into a com¬ 
munity, such an association becomes a State, and 
from its numbers, its power, its agreement on certain 
propositions of political, social, and economic im¬ 
portance establishes rules for government and by 
means of agents enforces obedience to them, such 
an organization takes on the character of a modern 
civilized State. 

Its function is the well-being of the entire com¬ 
munity within its scope of influence. Whatever is 
injurious generally to the moral, mental, physical, 
or economic life of its members is and should be a 
legitimate matter to regulate or abolish. A State 
failing to protect every right, tangible or intangible, 
of its citizens is just so far defective in its constitu¬ 
tion ; or expressed in its final analysis, it is the duty 
of the State to prevent everyone from using his own 
to the detriment of another. 

[91 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

It is impossible to enumerate the myriad abuses 
prohibited by municipal laws. The statute books 
of the States and the National Government are full 
of them. The selfishness of the human heart is 
inexhaustible in its fertility to devise new plans to 
go beyond its neighbor, and as long as the moral 
sense of mankind is not radically changed it will be 
necessary to enact new laws to prohibit new abuses. 

To apply these general propositions to modern 
commerce is a high duty of the State, and this is not 
Socialism either. Rather the enactment of sound 
economic laws is the best means to prevent Socialism. 
Wealth, or its other name, Capital, must exist, for 
otherwise there would be no funds with which to 
pay Labor for its products, and no products for the 
Buyers, or their other name, Consumers; but the 
world has everywhere and in all ages been subject 
to the extortions of capitalists. It is therefore the 
duty of the State to enact laws against usury; to 
prohibit issuing of deceptive papers, whether stocks, 
bonds, bank checks, notes, or other obligations; to 
restrain the employment of men, women, and chil¬ 
dren under circumstances injurious to their welfare; 
to establish courts for the investigation of all public 
utilities, and to fix the prices to be charged at such 
amounts as will pay remuneratively for the service, 
and encourage not only their continuance and upkeep 
but also other capitalists to embark into such enter¬ 
prises; to establish tribunals to consider the subject 
of lockouts by capitalists; to restrain them if unjust 
to Labor, or to uphold and strengthen them if just; 

[ 92 ] 


The State 


in sum — to consider the entire economic situation 
of the nation and by the power of numbers enforce 
by appropriate action its judgments. 

It is also the duty of the State to create tribunals 
to secure to Labor its rights, and on the other hand 
to prevent Labor from oppressing Capital and Con¬ 
sumers. It has been stated above that Labor has 
sacred rights which should be upheld and fostered. 
This cannot be affirmed too strongly. Every honest 
workman should receive such a wage as will enable 
him to support himself and family in comfort and 
in health, and at the same time enable the provident 
to lay aside such daily sum that when at the approach 
of old age he will be possessed, if a resident of a city, 
of his own home suitable for his standard of living 
and of such an amount of wealth that sickness or in¬ 
capacity will not make him a pauper; and if a farmer, 
he will also be able to look out from his window on 
his own fields and stock. This is the minimum wage 
with which an honest, sober, and thrifty workingman 
should be contented, and prices should be fixed by 
the law of Supply and Demand to accord such a 
remuneration to a lifetime of labor, and if such law 
does not secure it, then the State through its economic 
tribunals should have jurisdiction to control the 
circumstances entering into the subject of production 
and also of prices to bring about this most desirable 
result. 

It follows necessarily from this view that the 
rights of Labor must be subjected to the same juris¬ 
diction of supervision to which Capital will be sub- 

[93] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

ject. It is an intolerable injustice to establish com¬ 
missions to regulate Capital and to allow Labor to 
go unsupervised, to go wild in its demands arising 
from ignorance of the Supply and Demand of the 
work it does. 

There is but one true rule in life — Justice alike 
to all men. Any violation of its dictates cannot last. 
Sooner or later the great law of compensation over¬ 
rides the particular injustice, establishes right — 
but alas! such is the depravity of the human heart, 
such the initiative of selfishness, that as one error 
is corrected another injustice is bom, and thus goes 
on forever the continual battle between right and 
wrong, ever changing places, ever assuming new 
phases, and ever the fight. And yet, mysteriously, 
wrong never eventually succeeds. Men who are 
always seeking an unjust advantage are never suc¬ 
cessful in the long run. Let one look over his ac¬ 
quaintances, and he will find those who give short 
weight or false change, or neglect the business com¬ 
mitted to them, or who misrepresent their goods or 
demand more than they are worth, or do other wrong 
things, are very rarely successful. Something secretly 
pulls them down to failure, while those who are 
honest and just and true reap the reward of com¬ 
petency or wealth. 

If this principle of Justice is to be applied to eco¬ 
nomic matters then all the wrongs which Labor 
suffers, and all the offenses which Labor commits, 
should, when the law of Supply and Demand fails to 
regulate justly the situation, be capable of being sub- 

[94] 


The State 


mitted to a High Court of Justice, which should 
have jurisdiction to decree and the power to enforce 
its judgment; that a strike maybe righteously de¬ 
clared in a certain case; that a strike is unwarranted 
in another case, and must cease; that wages must be 
increased or lowered; that the hours of labor are 
too long or too short; that sanitary conditions are 
bad and must be remedied; in a word, that this eco¬ 
nomic subject shall be arbitrated and judgment 
passed exactly as all other disputes are finally settled 
between contestants by the judicial tribunals of the 
country, even to the extent if necessary of assessing 
damages against the guilty party. 

The rights of Current or Present Labor are no 
more sacred than the rights of Saved Labor or Cap¬ 
ital. There is no absolute right in any property, 
because its value depends on others buying it. 
Capital not used is valueless. Labor, idle or produc¬ 
ing something no one wants, is valueless. Each 
depends on the other and on a Buyer, and to this ex¬ 
tent its absoluteness is qualified. Each knows of this 
paramount condition before he embarks on investing 
or laboring, and therefore all this cry about the 
right to strike ad libitum , of the absolute right of 
Labor to do as it pleases, is an utter fallacy arising 
from a narrow view of the situation which includes 
only Capital as its adversary, and does not embrace 
that other more important party, the Buyer, without 
whom Labor is as worthless as a boulder in a plowed 
field. 

Another circumstance equally important in quali- 

[95] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

fying the absolutism of Labor is that every workman 
is at all times enjoying the benefits of the Capital 
and Labor of others, and partaking of the well¬ 
being and security offered by Buyers in their or¬ 
ganized status as a State. 

The house the laborer occupies represents Capital, 
the clothes he wears, the food he eats, the tools he 
works with are bought at prices regulated by the 
law of Supply and Demand, and while enjoying these 
benefits he has no right to declare that they do not 
equally apply to himself. 

All society is based on the surrender of absolute 
and unlimited liberty to do as one wills. True 
liberty consists in acting as one wills, provided it 
does not infringe on the rights of others. 

In the subdivision of this subject under the head 
of Strikes it was stated and it is here reaffirmed that 
the law of Self-defense applies to strikes as well as 
to the protection of one’s own body, and therefore 
it is the duty of Labor to strike when it is denied the 
just compensation for its work which will enable 
the workingman and his family to live in comfort, 
in health, and to save such a reasonable sum as will 
procure him a home and maintenance after a life 
of labor. 

But this determination to strike, while it may be 
exercised in the first place, unless prohibited by 
statute, by those intending to strike, is and should 
be subject to review by the State, to determine if 
it is justified by the circumstances, precisely as in 
a case where Self-defense is set up as a justifica- 

[96] 


The State 


tion for an assault. One man shoots another. He is 
put on trial for murder. He alleges the man he 
killed was about to kill him. His judgment is not 
taken as decisive of his innocence, but the matter 
is investigated by a court and jury. If his claim of 
self-defense is found to be correct he is acquitted of 
the homicide; if not, he is adjudged guilty. So with 
strikes and lockouts. Each has the right of Self- 
defense and may act on it for the moment, but each 
should be subject to review in a properly constituted 
court and the final judgment of the tribunal en¬ 
forced against each equally. 

Saved Labor and Current Labor should obey the 
same laws, and when these are administered right¬ 
eously it will be found that prosperity will await on 
both, for Labor cannot attain its highest wage with¬ 
out Capital receiving the same measure of success, 
nor Capital be most beneficially employed if Labor 
is downtrodden or underpaid. They are as in¬ 
separable as the liver and the kidneys in the animal 
body. 


[97] 


Chapter IX 


THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

HE preceding observations are based on the 



JL general principle that in a Society where an 
individual enjoys certain benefits from being a 
member of it, he has received an adequate consid¬ 
eration for the surrender of an absolute free will 
to do as he pleases when his conduct will affect the 
rights of others. Association in business, in mar¬ 
riage, in a State, or in any other manner, implies a 
regard for the rights of associates. This rule of 
conduct is universal. 

But in the United States the political economist 
is not obliged to resort to these social and equitable 
principles to find authority to control Capital in the 
use of its wealth, or to compel Labor to perform its 
duty at fair prices. The Constitution of the United 
States has settled both of these matters on an honest 
and just basis. By express provision Article I, sec¬ 
tion 8, the Congress shall have power to provide 
for the “General Welfare” of the United States; 
and shall “make all laws which shall be necessary 
for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers.” 

It would be difficult to frame a broader grant of 


[98] 


The Constitution of the United States 

power or an expression more universal to prohibit 
abuses and promote advantages than the one plac¬ 
ing the “General Welfare” of the United States in 
the hands of Congress, the direct representatives of 
the people chosen by their free and secret suffrages. 

To find the country cramped by the machina¬ 
tions of capitalists, or internal improvements, and 
the production of the necessities of life or commerce 
paralyzed by labor unions, surely the “General 
Welfare” of the nation is very seriously impaired. 
The moment either of these conditions exists the 
extraordinary power of Congress arises out of the 
very situation and the enactment of all laws neces¬ 
sary to restore the general welfare rests in its discre¬ 
tion. The decision of what this “ General Welfare” 
is, wherein it has been impaired, what remedy is 
necessary to restore it, are matters which rest ex¬ 
clusively in the judgment of Congress — neither 
in that of the President of the United States nor 
in that of any judicial tribunal. The function of the 
President is to carry out and enforce the provisions 
of law made by Congress; that of the Judiciary is to 
interpret the meaning of such laws — what Congress 
intended by the use of the words it employed. 

So it is seen that any claim by either of these two 
great economic forces, Capital or Labor, the founda¬ 
tion stones of civilization, of being above or beyond 
the law — that its will is supreme—is repugnant 
not only to the first principles of Society, but is 
also by the express language of the Constitution 
made subject to whatever law and restriction the 
[ 99 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

people may decide by their representatives in Con¬ 
gress is necessary to curb any conduct injurious 
to the general welfare of the United States. 

Such was the unlimited power granted by the 
Constitution as passed by the Convention of the 
original thirteen States. All individual rights, all 
property, were subservient to the general welfare 
of the country, but our wise forefathers soon saw 
that such unrestrained power might readily under 
stress of war, or during economic convulsion, or 
by failure of crops or otherwise, be perverted by 
harsh and unfair legislation bearing more heavily 
on one portion of the people than on another, and 
accordingly early in the history of the country they 
secured the enactment of an amendment to the 
Constitution, Article 5, which provides that “Pri¬ 
vate property shall not be taken for public use with¬ 
out just compensation.” 

These two provisions of our Magna Charta stand 
thus together as protecting shields—the first to 
secure the general welfare of the people, the amend¬ 
ment to prevent injustice to the individual. 

Congress has so far exercised its power for the 
general welfare principally by the enactment of the 
so-called Sherman Anti-Trust Law and the estab¬ 
lishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 
whose main objects are to prevent oppressive com¬ 
binations by Capital. It has not found it necessary 
yet to legislate against Labor, but the latter is no 
less amenable to its power when the general welfare 
of the United States is imperiled. 

[ 100 ] 


The Constitution of the United States 


The right of the workingman to the value of his 
labor is as much private property as the saved labor 
of the capitalist. Each is protected equally by the 
Constitution from arbitrary appraisement. No 
public official, from the President of the United 
States to a military lieutenant, has the capacity to 
set the amount of “just compensation.” This is a 
judicial act, and to be performed as in the ordinary 
course of justice — namely, by notice to the owner, 
a day in court with an opportunity to present wit¬ 
nesses as to the merits of the investigation, and the 
value of his property condemned for public use, to 
be decided upon by impartial jurors, appraisers, or 
other tribunal. 

Accordingly, if Congress should ever have occasion 
to intervene for the general welfare in the regula¬ 
tion of Labor, it will be not only necessary for 
legality, but absolutely for justice, that an impartial 
tribunal should be established with power to summon 
witnesses, to inquire into all the important circum¬ 
stances controlling the cause, and with the right to 
adjudge whether Labor is receiving its fair reward; 
if it is not, to decree an increase under pain of justi¬ 
fying a strike or such other forcible means it may 
seem wise to adopt; but if the remuneration is just, 
to decree that the strike or its other acts are un¬ 
lawful and must cease, and to inflict punishment 
or damages as may be appropriate and just. 

The provision of the Constitution relating to the 
general welfare of the country is in immediate con¬ 
nection with the provision for the defense of the 
[ IOI ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

nation, the words being that the Congress shall 
have power “to provide for the Defense and Gen¬ 
eral Welfare of the United States.” 

Under the word “Defense” it has summoned to 
arms millions of men, as in the late war with Ger¬ 
many, and given them such pay as is just compensa¬ 
tion. The life of a soldier and the work he does are 
as sacredly the property of the man as that Labor 
belongs to the workingman. If for the “ Defense ” it 
can command life, for the stronger reason it can 
command Labor, and on such terms as the “Gen¬ 
eral Welfare” demands, subject, however, to just 
compensation. 

It would be well for both Labor and Capital to 
understand clearly that they hold their possessions 
subject to the general good of Society. 


[ 102 ] 



Chapter X 


IMMIGRATION 


HE subject of Immigration should be regulated 



X in a well-settled country principally on the 
basis of the economic law of the Supply and Demand 
of Labor. If labor at home is in excess it is plainly 
wrong to allow it to be further impoverished by 
accessions. It is unfair also to the emigrants, who 
would find themselves without the means of support; 
but on the other hand when the supply of labor is 
inadequate to perform the work needed for present 
development, the immigration of able, honest, and 
otherwise desirable foreigners is a wise, humane, and 
just policy. 

No better illustration of the inestimable value of 
immigration can be found than in the history of the 
growth of the United States. With practically a 
boundless territory of fertile lands awaiting culti¬ 
vation; with unopened mines containing one third 
of the known deposits of coal of the earth; with gold, 
silver, copper, and iron ready for their discovery; 
with many other natural resources lying idle in a 
salubrious climate; with a government of freemen, 
this vast and blessed country has by the aid of 
millions of emigrants during the period of almost 


1103 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

a single lifetime become the foremost nation of the 
world in power, in intelligence, in wealth, in nobility 
of character, and in morality. 

The earlier emigrants have long since become not 
only acclimated to our soil but also to our institu¬ 
tions, have forsworn all allegiance to their former 
rulers in deed as well as in oath, and bestowed upon 
their adopted country the double blessing of their 
own presence and energy, and the gift of a numerous 
progeny, whose loyalty, displayed on the battle-fields 
of France under the flag with Stars and Stripes, 
was as pure and noble as that of the descendants 
of Lexington or Valley Forge. 

As to those who have more recently cast their lots 
with our own it is with satisfaction that the citizens 
of the United States have found, with few excep¬ 
tions, that their devotion to their new homes has 
not been less ardent and sincere than that of the 
bravest. An impressive and convincing lesson of 
their loyalty and heroism is the reading of the long 
lists of those who died in battle and were wounded 
in the face of the enemy, bearing German, Austrian, 
Polish, Hungarian, and Bulgarian names. These men 
heard cannons roar, sank under bursting shells, felt 
the momentary pain of the mortal stab of the Ger¬ 
man bayonet. They gave, as well as the sons of 
Colonial dames, their all. The German Kaiser who 
boasted that the boys of the fatherland, although 
citizens by oath of the United States, would never 
fight against his rule was never more grievously 
mistaken. With the exception of a very few traitors 

[ 104 ] 


Immigration 

— and they would be traitors wherever placed— 
none were more loyal, so Congress in legislating on 
the subject of Immigration may fairly leave out of 
consideration the question of previous allegiance 
of the emigrant. 

It is true that in some large cities like New York 
the ignorant emigrants herd themselves into colonies 
of the same nationalities to which they belonged, and 
continue more or less to speak the language of their 
youth; but where else are they to go,and what other 
language are they to talk in except the one they 
know? By degrees, however, their children attend¬ 
ing the public schools and spreading out into em¬ 
ployment among our citizens soon drop the majority 
of the customs of their parents, and in the third 
generation are genuine American citizens. 

So Immigration is eminently a matter for wise 
economic adjustment. Business should not suffer 
for want of agents, crops should not fail because 
there is no plowman, and unexplored mines remain. 
With the coming of such laborers comes a double 
blessing. They bring their hands and brave hearts 
to work with; they bring no less their wants to be 
supplied. They must be fed, housed, and clothed. 
These necessities in turn make demands for labor 
and capital, for more labor and capital than before 
they came, and the country grows rich before it is 
realized, like the miser who compounds his interest 
with his principal. 

And yet where land is all occupied, factories full 
of operatives and others are clamoring at their doors 
1105 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

for work, counting houses and stores surcharged 
with employes, it is plainly the duty of the 
State to suspend Immigration until a demand arises 
by a return flow of the tide of business. No hard 
and fast rule, either favorable or unfavorable, should 
be adopted. It is a question belonging to the hour 
in the life of a nation. 


[i°6] 


Chapter XI 


TARIFF 



fflE adoption of either a high or low Tariff 


1 affects considerably Capital and Labor and 
Buyers. It is in its essence largely an economic 
matter, and is intimately associated with the law of 
Supply and Demand. The effect of a high tariff on 
goods made in foreign countries has the immediate 
result of maintaining to the extent of the impost 
added a higher price for the same articles manu¬ 
factured at home. The revenue derived from the 
duties contributes to the amount collected, in paying 
the expenses of the Government, and to the lessen¬ 
ing of internal taxation on the people. A double 
benefit is usually thus secured. 

A low tariff on the other hand is promptly fol¬ 
lowed by the importation of such goods and other 
things that will, notwithstanding the duty imposed, 
sell at an equal price with those of domestic manu¬ 
facture. The supply being thus increased, their 
variety and quality enlarged and sometimes bet¬ 
tered, and all men buying in the cheapest market, 
the wages of the domestic workers must be kept to 
a scale no higher than foreign labor plus the low 
impost and the cost of carriage from the foreign 


[ 107 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

market. The tariff being low will to the extent of 
its reduction fail in the support of the Government. 

The general principles above stated are subject 
to a number of modifications. 

1. It is universal experience that all men will buy 
in the cheapest and sell in the dearest markets, and 
this principle of human conduct must never be 
overlooked. Nor is there any impropriety or im¬ 
morality in such action. It is a legitimate effort 
to attain success in the acquisition of the necessities 
and conveniences of living and, as it has been shown, 
Effort is the chief cause of advancement and civili¬ 
zation. Ordinarily, and unless under the impulse 
of some extraneous motive, foreign goods at the 
same price and quality will be bought as readily as 
those of home manufacture. 

2. As to whether a people favor a high or low 
tariff depends therefore largely upon their domestic 
status. Confining the consideration of the subject 
to the United States of America it is apparent from 
its size of territory, its variety of products, its 
diversity of population, its manufactories, that there 
will always be a difference of opinion on this subject 
arising out of their several interests. 

Very naturally the people of New England and 
the Middle West will strongly favor a high tariff. 
Their towns and villages are crowded with factories, 
their watercourses and steam engines are utilized 
at turning work-wheels, their houses are filled with 
men, women, and children producing something 
useful, all and everything are alive with work, and 
[ 108] 


Tariff 


all are interested in maintaining the price of their 
products to the highest possible point—these people 
are and should be advocates of high tariff. They 
would probably not object to a prohibition of entry 
of all foreign goods which come in competition with 
their own. 

The motives which actuate the workingmen are 
equally, if not more, efficacious in molding the 
opinions of capitalists who own the mills and employ 
the operatives. They want to sell their products at 
the highest price. Obedient to these facts manufac¬ 
turing sections of the country have generally fa¬ 
vored high tariff on goods manufactured by them¬ 
selves. 

On the other hand the people of the Southern 
States, inhabiting a country exceedingly adapted 
to the growing of cotton, corn for sugar, tobacco, 
and other staples, have devoted themselves to 
agricultural pursuits rather than to manufactures 
and consequently have favored a low tariff. This is 
as legitimate and wise as the course followed in 
localities where the chief industries consist in turn¬ 
ing raw products into finished articles of commerce. 
Each wishes to buy in the cheapest and sell in the 
highest markets irrespective of how the transaction 
may affect his neighbor. 

Another important factor molding the opinions 
of agriculturists is that inasmuch as their sales 
consist principally of the products of the soil, sent 
to crowded and less fertile countries, it is important 
that a reciprocity of trade should be established 

1109 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

and their raw materials turned into manufactured 
products, and sent, if profitable, in return to this 
country in payment for what has been shipped to 
them. The more freely such foreigners can dispose 
of their manufactures, as in cases of low tariff, a 
greater demand for their goods will be created at 
their home and abroad, and the higher their wages 
will go. The higher their wages the more money 
they will have to spend on the imports, the more will 
be imported, and the products of the agriculturist by 
this increased demand will in turn sell for a higher 
price. But these economic circumstances will also 
raise wages in the foreign exporting country and tend 
somewhat to equalize prices with those of the im¬ 
porting State. 

Again it must not be forgotten, we cannot export 
indefinitely without importing practically an equal 
amount of goods or products. To export only, our 
sales, if large, would soon exhaust the money supply 
of any nation. A people like individuals must pro¬ 
duce something others will buy to be able in turn 
to supply themselves with their own necessities. Nor 
can we import extensively without exporting, other¬ 
wise we would also become bankrupt. 

The considerations mentioned above affect more 
directly those immediately engaged in manufacturing 
and agriculture. There are, however, usually a num¬ 
ber of persons who seem at first to be only buyers 
and, therefore, concerned primarily in the advan¬ 
tages of a low tariff. But on further analysis of this 
complex subject it will be found very few persons, 

[ no ] 


Tariff 


although only engaged in mental or manual labor, 
are exempt from its influence. 

Take the cases of the carpenter and salesman as 
examples. A high tariff results in the greater sale 
of home-made goods and is followed promptly by 
larger profits to the capitalist and higher wages to 
Labor. New factories are erected to accommodate 
this increased business and more houses built to sell 
to workingmen for homes — the carpenter is thus 
benefited and his wages increase. As to the sales¬ 
man—the more money received by either capitalist 
or workingman the more he spends in the stores and 
a greater number of jobbers, commission men, sales¬ 
men, clerks, and employes are required, and at 
more remunerative salaries. This thought might 
be further expanded and shown to run, more or 
less, through all trades and occupations. 

No man lives unto himself. 

One other consideration, and this rather favorable 
to a low tariff is, that the more general importation 
of foreign stuffs has a broadening effect on home 
manufacture. It teaches what other men are doing. 
It suggests ideas and methods unthought of pre¬ 
viously. It destroys the evils arising from isolation. 

In a country like the United States, having such a 
variety of climate, of soil, of products, of labor, and 
all of such vastness, this question of tariff will always 
demand an important consideration by its people. 
With characteristic selfishness a part will urge 
high imposts on all the articles they produce, and 
with like selfishness will vote for a low scale on the 

[ in ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

same products if they do not manufacture them, 
and so vice versa with everything. 

It would seem wise for true statesmanship to 
seek a compromise between these adverse inter¬ 
ests, and to establish a medium tariff for the whole 
country so each class of the people will surrender 
something to the welfare of their fellow citizens. 

Of course this proposition is somewhat idealistic — 
ideal to expect anyone will give up what he may 
retain for himself. But it is plainly set forth as an 
end to be attained by humanity, because man has 
made great progress in that line of conduct by ad¬ 
vancing from the state of the savage, which recog¬ 
nizes nothing but selfishness to an altruism which 
gives to poverty and deserving merit, which submits 
to a qualification of all natural rights by becoming a 
member of Society. 

Is it too much to believe in an optimism which 
cherishes the hope that in the long eras of the future, 
men as they become more civilized may also grow 
in brotherly love, the true enemy to the selfishness 
which rules the world today with its ugly and bane¬ 
ful spirit? May not the aspiration for a nobler life 
induce the mind to seek it? 


[ 112 ] 


Chapter XII 


MERCHANT MARINE 

I T should not be difficult to decide on the advisa¬ 
bility of a Merchant Marine established either 
by private enterprise or by aid of the State, if the 
principles repeated in this treatise are given their 
proper consideration. 

Nothing can be plainer than, if ships are built 
and employed in either foreign or domestic trade by 
individuals and found to be profitable, such busi¬ 
ness must be a desirable undertaking. It employs 
thousands of laborers, starting with miners of coal 
and iron, next the lumbermen who fell the trees, 
then those engaged in transportation, ship carpen¬ 
ters, boiler makers, and a vast number of other 
trades, such as longshoreman, sailors, engineers, 
and navigators, until their numbers are legion, 
all engaged in labor earning their own livelihood 
and contented as the human heart can be. For 
such ships to continue to traverse the seas there 
must be a demand for their employment, and 
whenever a commercial demand exists it is an 
elemental principle of economics that it should be 
gratified. 

There are, however, many circumstances contrib- 

[ 113 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

uting to make Capital wary of such enterprises and 
it requires large speculative profits to overbalance 
the risks, such as: 

1. The natural dangers of the seas, storms, hidden 
rocks, etc. 

2. Rapid deterioration of ships and frequent and 
unexpected breakdowns, etc. 

3. The ever-increasing wage of helpers, sailors, 
and others. 

4. Competition with cheaper foreign labor in ship¬ 
building, and the remuneration of seamen. 

5. Cheaper rates in foreign bottoms than in our 
own ships. 

When the above facts are taken into consideration, 
it is evident that for the shipping of this country to 
be maintained by private owners the freight rates 
must be high, and the opportunity of foreign vessels 
to compete reduced to a low point. The above case 
supposes profits to Capital and Labor and solves 
itself. But when home ships are driven off by foreign 
ones from any cause, the business takes on another 
aspect and should be decided according to the 
following rules. 

1. Is there a demand for all the labor of the coun¬ 
try at profitable occupations other than ship build¬ 
ing and ship navigation? If there is, such labor 
should be diverted to those businesses found to be 
profitable instead of being engaged in those entail¬ 
ing a loss. This proposition is so elementary as to 
answer itself. 

2. No feeling of pride or rivalry should enter 

[ u 4 ] 


Merchant Marine 


into the decision. What does it matter if foreign 
ships are carrying our wheat to Europe, if it 
will cause a loss to owners of American vessels or 
to the public under the guise of bounties ? And let it 
at this point be noted that the granting of any 
bounty or bonus to another to sustain an unprofit¬ 
able or unnecessary enterprise is essentially wrong, 
unless the people from whom it is exacted receive an 
equivalent compensation. No man, no State has 
the right to sequestrate earnings or property to 
maintain the business of another, unless such ap¬ 
propriation will be returned in some equally valuable 
form. 

The contribution of a bounty or bonus by the 
State is the taking of funds from its citizens, col¬ 
lected by taxation, and giving it to some individual 
or enterprise. If the citizens receive no adequate 
compensation for the expenditure of the public 
money, it is in substance the taking of private prop¬ 
erty without just compensation and is prohibited 
by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the 
United States. 

Nor should a State itself carry on the business of 
Merchant Marine or Railroad Transportation or 
other Public Utility when unprofitable or a drain 
on the public resources of the country unless some 
supemecessity, as in time of war, renders such action 
necessary, or there is such a surplus of labor as to be 
a menace to public security if it is not employed by 
the State. In which latter case the compensation 
to those who pay the cost is the security of life and 

[ ns ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

property acquired by the employment of the un¬ 
employed. 

Every sober, industrious, and frugal citizen is 
entitled to be employed at the work he is qualified 
to perform, and to be paid for the same an adequate 
wage. He and his family are human beings. They 
must have shelter, be clothed and fed. These are 
prime necessities, and the State, when the law of 
Supply and Demand does not provide for his case, 
must take up the burden and supply them. And 
this is not Socialism either. 

It was the duty of the State to have prevented 
such a catastrophe if large numbers of workingmen 
are affected by such an economic condition. It 
should have elected legislators sufficiently far-sighted 
to have stopped immigration if an excess of popula¬ 
tion is the cause of the nonemployment; or if the 
monopoly of land by a few has crowded the cities 
beyond their capacity to employ their population, 
then they should have foreseen the evil, and laws 
should have been enacted preventing the holding of 
land not usefully cultivated; or if either Capital or 
Labor by organization has defeated the legitimate 
development of business, its statesmen should have 
been wise and brave enough to have established 
proper tribunals to have regulated both, or either of 
them, and compelled them to accept fair profits 
and just wages; or finally, such a tariff should 
have been established as to have prevented foreign 
competition to such an extent that employment 
would be available for all who wanted to work. 
[ 116 ] 


Merchant Marine 

The State as well as individuals must pay for its 
mistakes. 

It will be found, except in the demobilization of a 
large army or some failure or cataclysm of nature, 
that the State through the incompetency of its 
legislatures will be the cause of there not being ade¬ 
quate work for its citizens. So when such a condi¬ 
tion from any cause arises and men are starving, or 
houseless, or without raiment, to prevent theft, vio¬ 
lence, murder, and anarchy which invariably follow 
the want of such necessities, the State by whatever 
power it possesses is wisely bound to remedy the 
situation to the best of its ability. In §uch a case the 
establishment of a Merchant Marine by means of 
bounties to individuals, or by the State itself enter¬ 
ing into the business of ocean traffic, is entirely justi¬ 
fied, even though it suffer loss, if such business is 
considered to be the best or even a proper method to 
employ surplus labor. 

These considerations may have to some extent 
entered into the judgment of English legislators 
when they have granted bounties to shipowners on 
occasions where there have been three to five work¬ 
ingmen applying for one vacancy in their factories. 
Then not only bonuses for vessels but all other works 
in which the public is interested, such as building of 
highways, digging canals, introduction of water or 
electric power, etc., are entirely justified for the 
highest and wisest economic considerations. 

But a general surplus of labor should be real and 
widespread — it should not be a camouflage to 
[ ii 7 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

force exorbitant rates of interest to Capital or unfair 
wages to Labor before the State should move in its 
majesty. 

The ownership by the State or its citizens of mer¬ 
chant vessels which could be changed into trans¬ 
ports for carrying of soldiers, their supplies and muni¬ 
tions of war, is no adequate reason to build up a 
Merchant Marine and to sustain it at a loss. The 
United States, it is to be hoped, will never have oc¬ 
casion again to ship an army across the seas. To be 
well prepared to fight takes away the fear of war, — 
and who should not fear this most dreadful of human 
evils? Why not learn a lesson from the collapse of 
Germany? 


[ 118 ] 


Chapter XIII 
SOCIALISM 


F ROM the number of adjectives used to qualify 
the term “ Socialism ” it is very difficult to state 
what it stands for. There are conservative social¬ 
ists, independent socialists, and socialists who are 
communists. It is supposed they have some com¬ 
mon creed from the use of their common designa¬ 
tion. Among those people who are not socialists 
this new economic theory is understood to embrace 
those citizens who are dissatisfied with the existing 
order and government of affairs, social and economic, 
and the world is invited to change what it has tried 
for something so uncertain that even its advocates 
have not settled on any definite program or prin¬ 
ciples — except they demand a change. 

i. To determine in any case whether a change of 
method is desirable, the correct philosophic pro¬ 
cedure would seem to be to estimate in the first 
place what it is proposed to change. 

Confining these observations to the social and 
economic conditions of the United States, which 
all the readers of these words understand as well 
as the writer, and limiting the observations to 
the period before the late war with Germany, 

[ 119 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

as showing best their normal status, the question 
is asked, Where in the whole world and at any 
reliable historic period has there been such unex¬ 
ampled prosperity, health, opportunity for pleasure, 
and freedom for all classes of society as existed in 
this country? There was no invalid of mind or body 
but was provided in the eleemosynary institutions 
which were located in every community with food, 
raiment, and skilled attention. No poor were seen 
begging for bread, no cripples exposed their misfor¬ 
tunes, except those who preferred, no homeless 
family slept under the stars, no wrong was suffered 
but was amply redressed in courts, where all costs 
were waived for the poverty of those unable to pay 
for the assertion or defense of their rights. 

The home life of the family was sacred and pro¬ 
tected from all intrusion by officials or strangers, 
and men made their firesides peaceful, refined, and 
loving as they chose. When they left their front 
doors they met an active world, hurrying on its 
errands, well dressed, intelligent, and earnest — the 
women crowding the stores with their pockets well 
filled with their husbands’ wages, and the boys 
and girls tripping their way to or from the public 
schools. 

Before sunset practically all work had ceased 
and the evenings were spent in family reunions, at 
places of entertainment, or in promenades on the 
streets. Everywhere during the day there was work. 
Capital withdrew its money from the bank vaults 
and paid the thousands of workmen who made the 
[ 120 ] 


Socialism 


materials and erected public buildings, warehouses, 
stores, dwellings, large and small, occupying some¬ 
times whole blocks of ground. The sound of ham¬ 
mer and saw was heard in all quarters. Houses for 
workingmen, well built, sanitary, and of pleasing 
architecture, were for sale or rent in all cities at 
reasonable prices and on easy terms of payment, 
and new dwellings, new barns, and well-tilled fields 
dotted the whole country. 

Every opportunity for ambitious youth was open 
to all. The free public schools prepared him for the 
study of medicine, for law, for scientific engineering, 
for chemistry, and for statesmanship. If his voice 
was not heard in the legislature of his State, or 
the Senate of the United States, it was his own 
fault. 

Labor unions were generally recognized in all 
trades and the wages of the workmen regulated by 
them to such an extent that their members received, 
as they should have, proper compensation for their 
labor. Fraternal organizations embracing almost 
every conceivable charity were common. 

In a word, Universal Prosperity marked this 
blessed land of Freemen. 

From a survey of its social, economic, and political 
aspect, the agencies being the same today that they 
were before the war with Germany, is it not reason¬ 
ably certain that the same prosperity will continue, 
will multiply as the population of the country con¬ 
tinues to increase? There are no dark clouds arising 
in the horizon, except those we make ourselves. The 
[ 121 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

land is fruitful, the people are healthful, the govern¬ 
ment is free. Shall we change all of these good things 
for some theory of government of which we know 
nothing? This country is envied by all others. They 
live on our food, they long for our freedom, they 
would have our prosperity, but they do not work 
like the Americans. There are no people in the world 
that have the energy of ourselves, and consequently 
there are none who have our comforts. It is work, 
and work alone, that has placed America on this 
pinnacle as a beacon light to which all eyes are now 
turned. When its work ceases the light will grow 
dim, and the tide of emigration will flow to other 
lands. 

As an undeniable proof of these assertions let 
us call attention to the late subscriptions to the 
Liberty and Victory bonds of the Government. 
There are approximately 21,000,000 families in the 
United States, and its Treasury Department pub¬ 
lishes officially that there were 65,277,680 sub¬ 
scriptions to the five loans. This is a wonderful 
testimonial to the individual wealth of the people, 
and to their magnificent patriotism. 

2. Yes — there is more work to be done, and 
there is no way to escape it. It has been God’s 
manner to make all animal life self-developing, 
— insect, fish, bird, mammal, man. It has been 
His decree that each creature should strenuously 
exercise its natural faculties and from their employ¬ 
ment two vast results have taken place, viz.: an 
evolution to constantly higher and higher organ- 
1 122 ] 


Socialism 


isms; and a great and unalloyed pleasure enjoyed 
from the exercise of these faculties and the perform¬ 
ance of such work as they were capable of doing. 
They both proclaim in the loudest voice the mercy 
and love of their Creator. 

What is it that Socialism proposes to do? Is it to 
escape Labor and at the same time to possess food 
and the comforts of civilization? As well expect 
to suspend the attraction of the earth. Is it to 
have one class of men work, and then to divide the 
product of their labor with another who has been 
idle? You cannot change the heart of man, nor 
is it desirable that you should be able to do so. What 
a man earns he will ever claim as his own. Is it to 
take from those who by superior intelligence, harder 
work, and unabated thrift have accumulated Capital 
and divide it among his neighbors? This would be 
only a temporary measure, for what would socialists 
do after they had consumed this surplus and there 
was no more wealth? And who would then attempt 
in the future to create a surplus if it was known that 
as soon as it was heaped up it would be divided? 
And how is a surplus brought together, except by 
the employment of Capital — and if there was no 
Capital with which to pay Labor for its work, what 
would become of the laborer? 

Probably the conservative socialist will answer, 
the above is not what we want. We want something 
else. But the conservative socialist soon descends 
to the extreme socialist and he further steps down¬ 
ward to the communist. 

[ 123 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

Facilis descensus Averni. 

Socialism is founded more or less on the vicious 
principle that what a man earns and saves is not his 
own, which develops itself either into a crude and 
direct appropriation, or the more covert but no less 
efficient manner of paying to someone more than 
he deserves, for as shown before no one can receive 
more than is his due without taking from some other 
what belongs to him. 

But let us have social equality, another socialist 
demands. We have political equality it is true. One 
man is no better than another, and there should be 
no distinctions in society. There are no distinctions 
except those individuals make for themselves, and 
these cannot be controlled by statutes. Caste or 
class is an inherited instinct among all animals — 
those different in nature will not associate. The 
writer has seen many times cattle penned in a field 
together where the cows will not allow the heifers 
to associate with them — and the heifers will drive 
away those younger by a year. He has observed 
the Holstein cows, which are black and white, lie 
together, and compel the Guernseys, yellow-red, to 
keep at a distance. Horses and cows in the same 
pasture eat separately. Plymouth Rock hens, a 
gray, black, and white color, will sometimes refuse 
differently colored chicks, although they hatched the 
eggs. In the spring the robins come from the South, 
and there are no other species of birds with them. 
So it is all through nature. Does Socialism expect 
to reverse this universal habit,—to establish by law 

[ 124 ] 


Socialism 


that the manual laborer shall dine with the expert 
mechanic and the latter with the lawyer and judge? 
In the first place, the laborer will refuse to annoy 
himself with company which does not think the same 
things as he does, nor will the judge enjoy talking 
about a trade he does not understand. They sepa¬ 
rate themselves with pleasure to each. It is scarcely 
worth the trouble to elaborate this argument. So¬ 
cialism must find some other theory on which to 
effect a change in society. 

Again, others wish the Public Utilities to be oper¬ 
ated by the public. All of the towns and cities of 
the United States are governed by the public. They 
are public utilities. 

The United States Census for 1913, the year 
before the war with Germany, shows that the total 
net indebtedness of the Nation was $1,028,564,055; 
of the States, $345,942,305; and of minor divisions, 
such as Counties and Towns, $3,475,954,353, — a 
total of $4,850,460,713, notwithstanding all real, 
personal, and intangible property was assessed and 
taxed to the limit of endurance. Almost everywhere 
the taxes are increasing and the bonded indebted¬ 
ness as well. 

Nothing stimulates attention, care, and faithful¬ 
ness in the transaction of business like personal re¬ 
sponsibility for neglect and bad judgment, and it is 
to expect something more than human of a manager 
of an enterprise to contend, without capitulation, 
against the difficulties which constantly arise when 
he works for a salary and does not suffer losses. 

[ 125 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

A conspicuous illustration is furnished in the 
operation of the railroad transportation of the coun¬ 
try by the National Government in consequence of 
the late war with Germany. A report of the com¬ 
missioner in charge of the roads asserts that it has 
cost the Government approximately $486,000,000 
more to perform the service from January 1, 1918, to 
May, 1919, than it has earned. It is estimated that 
the sum total of the loss which the citizens will be 
compelled to pay for their experiment at railroading 
will approximate $1,000,000,000. The telegraph, 
telephone, and cable companies show no better 
service than when managed by the corporations 
whose energy and enterprise brought them into 
existence. 

Every loss in the operation of any public utility 
must be made good, every debt incurred must be 
paid, every extravagance must be atoned, and by 
whom and how? By the citizens through taxation. 
And let it here be noted that no one, however poor, 
escapes its effect. When the taxes on the land and 
houses are increased, the laborer who paid twenty 
dollars a month for rent soon receives notice that 
his rent is proportionally increased. The merchant 
assessed higher on his goods marks up the price and 
a dollar buys less than formerly. 

Yet there are those who will risk the increased 
taxation of their neighbors to secure an easy muni¬ 
cipal job with fat salary. These men are socialists. 
They look at the luscious plums on the Public tree 
and long for the inviting fruit. 

[ 126] 


Socialism 


At the time of this writing the President of the 
United States has issued his proclamation that the 
railroads taken under control by the Government as 
a measure of war against Germany would be returned 
to their respective owners on the first of next Janu¬ 
ary, 1920, and his Secretary of Commerce has lately 
addressed a body of citizens declaring that it is 
unwise and dangerous to vest in any one man, or 
set of men, the purchasing power which the posses¬ 
sion and management of the system confers. So 
enormous are the supplies required, so great the 
opportunity to appeal to the personal interest of 
those who furnish the necessities of these enter¬ 
prises in a country so vast, that an ambitious and 
selfish President anxious to perpetuate his power 
might by awarding improper contracts retain him¬ 
self and his satellites in office to the prejudice of 
the people. 

Not only the purchasing power might be abused 
but many of the hundreds of thousands of employes 
of these great utilities won over by excessive salaries 
and high wages. 

At this moment the question is asked as to the 
advisability of the State taking over and operating 
the coal, oil, and natural gas productions of the 
country. 

The subject arises from an apparent effort on the 
part of some capitalists to monopolize these great 
products of the earth, demonstrating that the natural 
and eternal selfishness of the heart of man is still at 
work. 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

Even the advocates of Government ownership do 
not believe the prices of these necessities will be 
lower to the people than if they remain in the con¬ 
trol of individuals, but they do not wish to see such 
wealth concentrated among a few capitalists. 

On the other hand, it is not believed that the 
above fear of monopolization warrants the Govern¬ 
ment in embarking on such enterprises; and under its 
power to promote the general welfare of the United 
States, laws may be enacted preventing monopolies 
from controlling production and regulating prices of 
the above articles which will be more advantage¬ 
ous to the public than Government ownership. 

All the evils set forth herein as arising out of un¬ 
wise Socialism apply with equal force to this subject. 

The power of the Government should be the mind 
controlling such utilities, and not the hand of a 
laborer doing the work. 

Is it not the height of folly to change these systems, 
even though they are not perfect, for something else 
so fraught with dangers? Shall the country, in order 
to appease the desire for a change, destroy the exist¬ 
ing order which has produced such happy results? 

The certain effect of the changes proposed by 
Socialism will be the loss of initiative. Such a conse¬ 
quence is far more deleterious to the welfare of 
humanity than is usually at first supposed. By 
effort man has acquired dominion not only over the 
fishes of the sea, the birds of the air and beasts 
of the field, but has made subservient to his will 
many of the laws and forces of nature. Think of 
[ 128] 


Socialism 


him,— this man whose remains are found in the bear 
caves of France with flint arrow heads, his weapons 
lying by his bones; the remnants of his dwellings, 
built from fear on piles, in the lakes of Switzerland; 
our nearest relatives of the alluvial age unearthed 
in Java,—this same man whose descendants through 
efforts, individual efforts, and their transmission 
by inheritance, developed the astronomer Herschel, 
who weighed the mass of the Sun and computed its 
distance from the Earth, and the mathematician 
Gauss, the inventor of logarithms. Would Newton 
have discovered and proved to be true by the motion 
of the moon the law of gravitation if he had not 
spent his life studying geometry, or Lodge the prin¬ 
ciples of wireless telegraphy had he not enslaved 
himself to science? It is said Demosthenes, the 
great orator of Greece, was a stammerer with a feeble 
voice. He put pebbles in his mouth to cure his speech 
and alked before the boisterous waves to be able 
to drown the noisy Athenian mobs. His efforts have 
brought him fame down through the ages. 

Effort to overcome obstacles, effort to discover 
the secrets of nature and its laws, initiative effort 
forever seeking the paths of least resistance, the 
restless untiring efforts of your and my ancestors 
have enabled me to write and you to read these 
words. 

This is a great thought, a great discovery of 
modern investigation. It illuminates the past and 
makes plain the wonderful advancement of the 
human race — its subjugation of the wilds of 

[ 129 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

the earth; its marking of the limitless waters of 
the oceans into paths as accurate as the highways 
of the land; its discoveries of steam, of heat, of 
electricity; its expressions of beauty in architecture, 
in painting, in eloquence, and in poetry — all with¬ 
out exception the result of initiative effort, persist¬ 
ent effort to accomplish the conceptions of the brain. 
This great thought is a lamp with which to light up 
the uncertain vista of the future which no one 
can say does not hold in its eventful bosom a more 
glorious man than it has entered into the mind to 
conceive. 

There is only one enemy to be feared in this ascent 
to the higher ranges of the mountain heights to be 
trod by the future man, and that is the cessation of 
effort. If Socialism has at its core, at its heart, any 
principle to prevent men from making constant, 
persistent effort, if it will in any manner encourage 
the transfer of effort to another, or to the general 
public proper to be performed by the individual, it 
will be found in the end to have been the deadliest 
foe to the well-being and progress of man. It would 
proclaim a halt in the wonderful career this biped 
has already carved for himself in the history of the 
world. Should we not, therefore, be the enemy, the 
uncompromising enemy of all schemes of Socialism 
or other plans of Government which depress or dis¬ 
courage private initiative; all systems which trans¬ 
fer responsibility from the shoulders and pockets of 
men working for their own success to indolent officers 
of the public? 


[ 130 ] 


Socialism 


Of course Effort is tiresome, but it makes the mus¬ 
cles and their nerves strong and resilient; it wearies 
the mind; its success or failure excites the pulsations 
of the heart, and yet it develops a nobler and greater 
man. Let railroads, steamships, gas and electric 
companies, etc., manage their affairs in their own 
way, relying on the competition arising out of the 
law of Supply and Demand to promote industry 
and to correct abuses. Let them have such honest 
and just profits as to induce others to supply the 
public needs, and yet because of the irrepressible 
selfishness of the human heart let them be controlled 
to honesty, and adequate performance of the service 
they undertake. Let the magnificent progress and 
development of the past, wrought by individual 
effort, be the guiding light for the future. 

The only legitimate field for Socialism is in works 
of Charity and Love. Those brave men who in 
consequence of their devotion to their country have 
on the battle-fields of France become blind or lame 
or ill are the very highest objects of Socialism in its 
noblest sense. Wherever there is weakness, wher¬ 
ever there is wrong to be righted,—and they cannot 
be remedied by ordinary economic laws,—there let 
Socialism enter and perform a holy and Christian 
duty, but do not let it force itself into those precincts 
where to correct an evil or rectify an error a greater 
evil must be perpetrated even though it assume 
falsely the garb of righteousness. 

Degeneracy is the natural offspring of economic 
Socialism. 


[ 131 ] 


Chapter XIV 


COMMUNISM 


> stated in the previous section, it is an easy 



step downward from Socialism into the abys¬ 
mal darkness of Communism and Anarchy. Social¬ 
ism as understood by some moderates signifies at 
the present time that the public utilities should 
be operated generally by the State. This is be¬ 
lieved to be only a temporary definition of the 
scheme, and ready to be expanded as circumstances 
may allow. Communism, however, has already 
advanced to the idealism of the abolishment of all 
private property, without compensation to its own¬ 
ers, and vesting and operating all individual labor 
and production in the general public. 

Neither can the system of Socialism, which pro¬ 
poses to take possession of the public utilities of 
the country, be put into operation, nor can that of 
Communism, which will nationalize land and make 
common all private property, be adopted under the 
present Constitution of the United States without 
the payment of just compensation to the owners. 
By the Fifth Amendment of that immortal charter 
it is provided that “Private property shall not be 
taken for public use without just compensation.” 

It is suggested that the citizen who contemplates 


[ 132 ] 


Communism 


centering in the Government the ownership of 
all the railroads, telegraph lines, telephones, ocean 
cables, express companies, markets, and other 
establishments generally patronized by the public, 
should estimate the cost of this transfer. He will 
find that probably one hundred billions of dollars 
would be required to pay for them. Where is this 
money to come from? As a rule the socialist has 
none, and no one else any such amount. The com¬ 
munist proposes to go even further than his friend, 
the socialist. He will not be content unless all 
private property is taken from its owners, — land, 
houses, factories, machinery, furniture, everything. 

The wealth of the United States consists in these 
things, and in these things alone. Its wealth is not 
in the territory itself. It is true the people are in 
possession of the land, but the land is valueless un¬ 
less labor is bestowed on it. Millions of acres of far 
richer soil lie under the tropics, and yet they are 
worth nothing to those who live on them. Hundreds 
of square miles of undrained bogs and marshes are 
in some sections of the United States, yet the tax 
assessors do not charge the owners with the vast 
plant food dormant in them until the labor of man 
by ditching and draining has made them available 
for use. 

No political economist, no census commissioner, 
knows the value of the private property of the citi¬ 
zens of this country. It may be two hundred thou¬ 
sand millions of dollars — it may be even more. 

If our Constitution is to stand, who is to supply 

[ 133 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

this purchase money. We are dealing with figures 
which Omnipotence uses in placing the stars in 
His firmament. The discussion is futile. There is 
no such money. To adopt either Socialism or Com¬ 
munism the present order of Government must be 
done away with, and Revolution substituted. 

Suppose it be granted that there are defects in the 
present order of Government, that there are the good 
things in Socialism and Communism claimed by 
their advocates. Would the correction of our bear¬ 
able evils and the establishment of the betterments 
proposed be worth the plunging of the country into 
the horrors which have characterized the revolution 
in Russia? 

American fighting American! 

Wherein has Bolshevism benefited anyone in 
Russia? Has it improved the condition of labor? 
There are no internal improvements. Has it abol¬ 
ished caste? No, not even by murder and expatri¬ 
ation of the middle classes. Has it given to the peas¬ 
ant the land he tills ? Not an acre. It is all held by 
the State. There has been a new proprietor substi¬ 
tuted for the old one. The last landlord is more 
tyrannical than the former. Has it changed slavery 
for freedom? Men now are compelled to work from 
fear of death, and the Czar is named Lenine. 

All of these proposed innovations and radical 
changes will accomplish nothing. They do not reach 
the root of the disease. It is the heart of man that is 
sick. Cure him of his selfishness and the evils which 
spring from his egoism will disappear. 

[ 134 ] 


Chapter XV 
THE REMEDY 


T HE preceding discussion of the economic con¬ 
ditions of modern civilization may be likened 
somewhat to a physician attempting to diagnose a 
disease. His efforts are valueless if he can find no 
proper remedy to offer for the physical disturbance. 
So after claiming the attention of the reader to a 
description of the evils narrated this subject should 
not be dismissed without the best possible remedy 
known to the writer being suggested for the cure 
or mitigation of the wrongs described. 

The great underlying cause of the conflict between 
capitalists, workingmen, and buyers is the imperious 
demand of each individual of each of these classes 
to provide for his necessities, and inasmuch as not 
one of these necessities, excepting the air, is free, 
and never in superabundance, but can be obtained 
only by manual or mental labor, both of which are 
tiresome and frequently exhausting, there arises a 
contest among the seekers as to who shall possess 
themselves of the coveted things. From the abuse 
of this competition arises the conflicts of Capital 
and Labor and the Public. 

Many attempts have been made to conciliate 

[135] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

these diverse interests, but so far no sovereign 
method has been devised. So various are the com¬ 
modities demanded by the multitudinous wants of 
modem civilization that no uniform plan can be 
made to apply to them. Each case takes on its own 
rule of action. 

Among those suggested have been: 

1. Sharing by Capital and Labor of the profits and 
losses of the enterprise. 

This case represents practically a common-law 
partnership and could be adopted in only a few in¬ 
stances, because (a) the workingmen would not 
usually be possessed of the Capital requisite to make 
good the losses, (b) or to sustain themselves while 
waiting for profits. It would not ordinarily be ac¬ 
ceptable to Capital because if the undertaking was 
extensive, some of the workmen although co-owners 
(a) would be incompetent to decide on many of the 
important matters of the business, and (b) the lia¬ 
bility of dissatisfaction and desire to close out the 
undertaking and demand their profits, which could 
not be accomplished, unless agreed to, except by a 
suit in an Equity Court with liquidation and proba¬ 
ble sale and destruction of the business. 

2. A share in the profits without liability for 
losses or privilege to direct affairs. 

This method has many advantages over the fore¬ 
going and has been adopted in some instances. It 
is based on the principle that a man usually will 
work most effectively for himself, (a) This plan 
may take the character of a bonus on the efficiency 

[136] 


. The Remedy 

of the workman, he relying on the integrity of the 
employer to render him justice, (b) or it may be a 
legal obligation, giving the workman a right to call 
for an account in a Court of Equity. 

Voluntary bonuses are sometimes paid by corpora¬ 
tions doing large and profitable business. 

Wherever a party surrenders any part of the wage 
he would be entitled to under the rule of the Supply 
and Demand he pays an adequate consideration for 
a share in the direction of the enterprise. But there 
are many cases where the profits are so small, or so 
hazardous, or the services of Labor so unimportant 
that the plan of bargaining for a bonus would be 
undesirable to Capital, and if wages were below the 
standard because of the expected bonus, it would be 
unacceptable to Labor. 

3. The almost universal practice of paying Labor 
a fixed sum for its services is evidence that it is the 
most acceptable plan to both itself and Capital. 

But circumstances are constantly arising making 
prices previously agreed upon no longer satisfactory 
to one or the other party and contests at once take 
place to fix a new scale. In such cases if each side 
is animated to act justly towards the other, and will 
approach the subject in a dispassionate spirit, and 
thoroughly investigate the important facts, many 
cases would be settled to the mutual advantage of 
both sides. It is the best method and ought to 
eventuate in justice to all. 

This plan has lately been adopted by the National 
Government in a number of important cases with 

[ 137] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

great success and to the benefit of all parties con¬ 
cerned. 

It is entirely proper that the State as the represen¬ 
tative of Society should inject itself into the con¬ 
tests between Capital and Labor whenever the 
people are likely to be deleteriously affected, and 
endeavor to conciliate the adverse interests. 

Men directly interested in issues soon become ex¬ 
cited and proportionally lose the calmness necessary 
to take an impartial view of the facts and their con¬ 
sequences in their effort to accomplish their desires. 
It is here that an investigation of the facts of the case 
by composed and disinterested persons who are 
truly anxious to serve the best interests becomes 
most important. 

Such is the compelling quality of justice that 
when it is made apparent the mind cannot resist 
its influence. Self-interest will confess and seek to 
avoid it by false assertion of facts, by inconsequen¬ 
tial excuses, by predictions of disaster, and other¬ 
wise, but when a learned and patient conciliator 
unravels the tangled skein and exposes the fallacies 
of self-interest, and undeniable justice is presented to 
the view, a settlement of the dispute is not far 
distant. 

4. If, however, after such examination Capital and 
Labor cannot agree, then the next most desirable 
method is Voluntary Arbitration, if it is truly im¬ 
partial and capable men are selected. This plan 
has been adopted in thousands of cases and generally 
has resulted in mutual satisfaction. 

[ 138] 


The Remedy 

5. The disputes which arise among men are due 
more to ignorance of the important facts of the case 
than to any other cause. The processes of reasoning 
are so uniform and the sense of right conduct so 
similar in humanity that the same conclusion is 
almost invariably reached by all from the same 
facts. If this statement be true the result follows 
immediately that knowledge of the facts controlling 
the use of Capital and Labor is the most important 
circumstance to establish a solid and working basis 
between them. 

Capital is constantly meeting such questions as: 
Will the supply of Labor diminish or increase? 
Will wages rise and if so, to what extent? Will 
there be a failure of raw materials? What are the 
prospects for wheat, corn, cotton, steel, coal, etc.? 
How far may foreign countries be counted upon as 
profitable markets, and which ones are likely to be 
the best, and for what products? In a word the 
entire situation for investment is always a matter of 
speculation, founded more or less on some accurate 
information, but from the large number of failures 
reported year after year among merchants, their 
knowledge of the Supply and Demand of the mer¬ 
chandise they deal in must have been frequently 
wrong. 

What these men want is accurate and broad in¬ 
formation of all the facts likely to control their busi¬ 
ness. This knowledge will enable them to escape 
many unsuspected dangers, and direct them into 
paths leading to success. 

[ 139 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

When the attention is turned to Labor the ignor¬ 
ance of the workingmen is most apparent. Summed 
in a sentence all their knowledge is usually founded 
on “hearsay,” sometimes exaggerated, sometimes 
entirely wrong, sometimes correct. Pleasant reports 
are believed, those adverse to their wishes are repudi¬ 
ated. They are not qualified as a rule to determine 
the Supply and Demand for Labor except in limited 
areas. They have not the funds with which to 
gather the information, nor are they accustomed to 
weigh the facts presented, and not unfrequently 
arrive at a conclusion not wise. One division of 
Labor suffering from insufficient remuneration is 
sometimes at work, while another class already re¬ 
ceiving a wage bankrupting the employer declares 
a strike for higher pay. In some instances an entire 
confusion and uncertainty exist as to what is fair 
treatment, resulting in a scramble for more. 

What Labor needs as much as Capital is an ac¬ 
curate knowledge of the Supply and Demand of its 
own commodity. This information should come to 
it from the most efficient and reliable sources, after 
thorough investigation of all the facts bearing 
upon or modifying it. There should be no padding 
or distortion of reports, and only trustworthy and 
able men employed in the investigation, having the 
confidence of both Capital and Labor. 

The above statement of the uncertain knowledge 
of the Supply and Demand for Capital and Labor at 
once suggests, as an important part of the Remedy 
to quiet the issues between them, that certainty shall 

1140 ] 


The Remedy 

take the place of uncertainty and knowledge sup¬ 
plant ignorance. To accomplish this desirable 
change it is proposed herein to be established as an 
essential preliminary: 

(a.) Five Commissions of Supply and Demand, to 
be located one each, for example, in New England, 
at Boston; in the Middle States, at Philadelphia; 
in the Southern States, at Atlanta; in the Middle 
West, at Chicago; and on the Pacific Coast, at San 
Francisco. 

The commissions are each to be composed of three 
members resident in their respective districts. The 
United States Board of Commerce or Trade or other 
national organization to nominate for each com¬ 
mission three members to represent Capital, the 
American Federation of Labor or other national 
organizations to nominate a like number for each 
commission to represent Labor, the President of the 
United States to select for each commission one of 
the three nominated by the respective nominating 
organizations, and also the President to appoint one 
member of each commission by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate to represent Buyers or 
the general public. 

The individuals named as commissioners are to be 
at the time of their appointment under forty years of 
age; to hold office for three years unless their ap¬ 
pointments are sooner revoked by those from whom 
they received their nominations. In case of removal, 
vacancy, or incapacity of any member, his office is 
to be filled by another nomination representing the 

[ hi ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

same class of Capital, Labor, or Buyer as the case 
may be. 

The duty of each of these commissions shall be to 
inquire into the Supply and Demand for Capital in 
the section of the United States for which they are 
appointed, of the commerce and important busi¬ 
nesses therein including prices of materials; also 
into the Supply and Demand for Labor of their 
section, ascertaining the number of workingmen 
idle and at work, and the rates of wages of each 
class therein, the cost of living and all other matters 
and things of value to Capital and Labor and Buyers, 
in order that each class may make contracts mutually 
advantageous to each of them. 

( b .) Each commission shall make a report in writ¬ 
ing every week to the Departments of Commerce 
and of Labor at Washington on the above matters, 
and shall cause the same to be published once a 
week in a daily newspaper of general circulation 
in each of the cities or towns of their section of the 
country. 

(c.) The expense of the above investigation and 
publications to be audited by the Department of 
Labor and paid for out of funds in the Treasury of 
the United States. 

If these commissions intelligently and faithfully 
perform their duty throughout the whole country 
there will be the fullest and most accurate knowledge 
of the condition of both Capital and Labor, and each 
class should not have any difficulty in determining 
whether it is receiving an adequate return for the 

[ 142 ] 


The Remedy 

use of its wealth or work, or if it should change its 
investment, or seek other employment, or move to 
other localities^apparently more favorable. 


Of the one hundred millions of people inhabiting 
the United States of America there are probably 
thirty millions engaged in mental and physical 
labor, and all the population are consumers. What¬ 
ever affects these vast masses beneficially must be to 
the “ General Welfare ” of the Nation. As previously 
stated there is an express provision of the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States making this “General 
Welfare ” the special duty of Congress to investi¬ 
gate and provide for. 

Under this mandate the Congress has the power, 
and it is its duty, to enact legislation controlling any 
abuse by either Capital or Labor, and to pass laws 
in that behalf. 

6. As the labor unions increase in number, 
organization and consequently in power, of neces¬ 
sity employers will consider themselves compelled 
to organize for defense. This movement has already 
begun in Canada. When Capital combines for 
united effort, and force arrays itself against force, 
as two mighty armies, direful results will follow to 
industry, to commerce, and even to civilization. 
After each side has fought, has exhausted itself and 
committed all the excesses of which the unbridled 
wants and passions of men can conceive — each 
panting and helpless — a temporary treaty of peace 

[ 143 ] 



Capital, Labor, and the State 

will be concluded, as has been often the experience 
among nations in the past. 

The reconciliation of Capital and Labor will 
never take place by these adverse contests, but 
only by unqualified justice being accorded to each, 
Under the heavens there is no peace where justice 
does not reign. 

If therefore our legislatures are wise, they will 
devote themselves to the paramount demand of the 
hour to enact laws that will settle contests between 
Capital and Labor on the basis of awarding to 
each the last right to which it is entitled. If em¬ 
ployers and workers have the forecast of their best 
interests they will combine for the purpose of secur¬ 
ing justice not only for themselves but for their 
opponents and the public. Then open warfare 
and secret combinations will be useless and inas¬ 
much as the wise and just settlement of all con¬ 
troversies have been for hundreds of years • best 
determined by trials in courts of judicature, so all 
disputes and contests between Labor and Capital 
should be decided in the same manner by the 
arbitration of disinterested and competent minds of 
sympathetic fellow citizens. 

There are many motives for conduct and many 
minds among men, and from experience it may be 
expected that some capitalists will refuse to arbitrate 
and some workingmen will vote to strike even against 
their own best interests. In order to provide 
against all such obstinate and unreasonable conduct, 
it is proposed herein that Congress, by virtue of its 

[ 144 ] 


The Remedy 

Constitutional power, and the States, in addition 
to the Commissions on Supply and Demand pro¬ 
vided for above shall establish: 

1. Compulsory Arbitration for the settlement of 
all disputes between Capital and Labor, in the event 
of nonacceptance of Voluntary Arbitration. 

2. That either party, including the National 
Government or a State, by petition to the United 
States District Courts may ask for arbitrators. 
Thereupon each side shall name three persons from 
which number the Court shall select one as arbi¬ 
trator for each side of the controversy, and the 
Court shall name a third arbitrator to represent the 
Government or State. 

When it shall appear to the Court that the mat¬ 
ters in controversy between Capital and Labor are 
of great importance, or affect a large number of 
persons, or an extensive area of territory, the Court 
shall order that each side shall name nine persons 
from whom the Court shall select three as arbitra¬ 
tors for each side of the controversy, and the Court 
shall name also three arbitrators to represent the 
Government or State. 

All arbitrators shall be disinterested. The right of 
challenge of arbitrators for cause shall exist. The 
Court to decide the issue. 

On failure of either party to name arbitrators, the 
Court shall appoint in its stead. After oath to de¬ 
cide justly, without fear or favor, the arbitrators 
shall summon each party to appear before them 
after reasonable notice. Counsel may appear and 

[ ns ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

witnesses are to be summoned by the officers of the 
Court, and compelled to testify under oath. Failure 
of witnesses to appear is to be punished by the Court 
as contempt. The testimony of all witnesses is to 
be reduced to writing by stenographers, and all de¬ 
cisions of the arbitrators also to be in writing and 
recorded. False swearing to be punished as per¬ 
jury. The reports of the Commissions on Supply 
and Demand are to be admitted in evidence. The 
decision of a majority of the arbitrators to be the 
judgment of the arbitration. 

3. The arbitrators shall inquire into the griev¬ 
ances complained of by either Capital or Labor, 
or the National Government or a State, and ad¬ 
mit all testimony having a legitimate tendency to 
make apparent the justice of the entire case. 

Pending investigation a majority of the arbitrators 
may make such temporary orders as justice may 
require. 1 Upon failure of the parties to comply 
therewith the matter is to be referred to the Court, 
and upon its approval the Court shall issue its writ 
to compel obedience under pain of fine and im¬ 
prisonment. 

4. In estimating the profits to be allowed to Capi¬ 
tal for its use, the arbitrators shall take into con¬ 
sideration all the essential elements of the business, 
viz.: reasonable compensation to the owners for 
their attention to the enterprise and their skill in its 
management; the value of the plant; its loss from 
wear and tear, and its obsolescence; the value of the 
Capital invested in raw materials and articles re- 

1146] 


The Remedy 

quired to carry on the business, and the proper 
profit for the same; the amount necessary to pay 
mortgages or money borrowed; all risks attendant 
on the enterprise and all matters which will secure 
such a fair and just profit as will not deter others 
from entering into the same and other businesses. 

5. In estimating wages to be allowed for Labor the 
arbitrators shall take into consideration the educa¬ 
tion, skill, and intelligence required of the employes; 
the standard of living of their class; the ruling price 
for Labor of the class under consideration; the 
value of the articles produced; the profits of the 
business; the proper scale of wages in the particular 
case; the cost of the necessities of living for the work¬ 
man and his family; the amount in excess of said 
necessities which will secure a sober, industrious, and 
thrifty man the ownership of a home after twenty 
years of reasonably continuous labor, and a com¬ 
petency in addition after thirty-five years of reason¬ 
ably continuous labor as a minimum wage; and all 
other matters and things necessary and proper 
for the support, the health, and contentment of 
Labor. 

6. The adjudication of the arbitrators or a ma¬ 
jority of them shall be binding upon all parties to 
the controversy and shall be certified to the United 
States District Court for the District in which the 
arbitration shall be held, and the said Court shall on 
final judgment issue its writ of Execution or Manda¬ 
mus commanding obedience. 

7. Either party may appeal from the finding of 

[ 147] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

the arbitrators to the United States District Court, 
and the Judge of the same holding an Equity Court 
shall without delay examine the allegations, the 
written evidence, and the decision of the arbitrators 
and may either affirm, reverse, or modify the same 
as justice may require, and his decision shall be final, 
except where nine arbitrators have constituted the 
Board of Arbitration, in which case an appeal by 
either party may be taken to the United States 
Circuit Court for said District which Court shall 
have the power to affirm, reverse or modify the 
award as justice may require, and the decision of 
said Circuit Court shall be final. Both said Dis¬ 
trict and Circuit Courts shall give preference to said 
arbitration cases and hear and decide the same with¬ 
out delay. 

8 . But no decision shall prevent any employer 
from the discontinuance of the business, nor any 
individual workingman from stopping work. The 
decision, however, may require the employer to con¬ 
form to its terms or suspend business and be sub¬ 
ject to damages to the aggrieved party, or to fine 
with lien on his assets and execution for payment of 
the same to the aggrieved party, and imprisonment 
of those persons offending, if necessary, to enforce 
the order of the court. And also may require any 
Labor Union or other organization or combination 
of persons from controlling or advising Labor in 
the premises, to revoke any order or recommenda¬ 
tion it may have made in the premises, or to cease 
its interference in the matter, and to be subject to 
[ 148] 


The Remedy 

damages to the aggrieved party, to a fine with lien 
on its assets and execution for payment of the same, 
and imprisonment of those persons offending, if nec¬ 
essary to enforce the order of the court. 

These are the outlines of the Remedy proposed 
to reconcile Capital and Labor and the State. 

Nothing is suggested in them which does not apply 
in full force to contests between citizens disputing 
each others’ rights. Courts of law and equity exist 
in all civilized countries to adjudicate private claims 
to the well-being of the State and to the general 
satisfaction of litigants. Every lawsuit is in effect a 
Compulsory Arbitration. 

No better scheme to reconcile disputes and secure 
justice has been devised. It is impossible to think 
of any tribunal more highly qualified to decide than 
that composed of men of natural capacity, of learn¬ 
ing, of integrity and disinterested. If such courts 
have met the approval of experience why should 
not arbitration between Capital and Labor be 
equally desirable? Of all men the workingman 
should be eager to have his rights adjusted by honest 
judges. He must be contented to receive just and 
fair wages. Investigation will show what he is en¬ 
titled to, and impartial men are the proper persons 
to decide what that is. 

If Labor is wise it will say plainly to the candidates 
for its suffrage, “You are expected to establish 
tribunals which will investigate and secure my 
rights.” 

It will be noticed that neither National nor State 

[ 149 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

boards of arbitration have been recommended. 
Such boards would have several undesirable features, 
as: 

1. They are quasi-political, and will be found to 
lean in their decisions towards carrying the next 
election for the party who appointed them. 

2. After the novelty of the exercise of power of 
their new office has worn off permanent arbitrators 
will be constantly seeking the path of least resistance, 
and urge, from their own inertia, compromises which 
ought not to be made, instead of awarding justice. 

3. Frequently an autocratic manner takes pos¬ 
session of public employes, and which would prob¬ 
ably deter some in minor disputes from seeking the 
benefits of arbitration. 

4. Public or permanent arbitration boards would 
not possess the vitality or give the sense of friendly 
aid that citizens chosen by the parties in interest 
would inspire. 

5. Nor would the professional arbitrators be 
possessed of a knowledge of the important facts of 
the case as private persons who would in most cases 
be chosen because of that very knowledge. 

6. National or State boards would be located often 
at inconvenient places or distances from the locality 
where the work occasioning the dispute was carried 
on, whereas arbitration boards of citizens selected 
by the parties in interest would assemble at the town 
which might be the residence of employer and 
workmen. 

7. National or State boards would be few in num- 

[ 150 ] 


The Remedy 

ber; whereas those selected by the parties would 
be as numerous as the disputes required. 

8 . Cost of the controversy would be probably less 
in case of arbitrators selected by the parties. 

The method here proposed is similar to the Jury 
system for the trial of contested claims between in¬ 
dividuals. It has been in existence and full vigor for 
four hundred years. It has proved its worth by its 
age and the affection with which all freemen regard 
it. Other systems of government have come and 
gone, but the trial by Jury of Fellow Citizens goes 
on forever, unamended, unimpaired. Its age is its 
badge of Honor. 


Independently of compulsory arbitration or other 
judicial proceedings the only remedy to promote 
Justice between Capital and Labor and Buyers is 
Moral Honor—an Honor embodying Truth and Love, 
those adorable virtues towards which a man’s eyes 
should be ever turned, as to some pharos at night in 
a wild sea to save the frail bark in which he sails from 
the rocks of disaster and the shoals of unhappiness. 

Ah! that divine injunction of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” 

A lifetime of peace and success are the words 
written between its blessed lines. Mysteriously, 
perhaps divinely, their violation is as surely to be 
pursued, in a greater or less degree, by failure in 
business and by wretchedness of mind, as the night 
follows the day. 


[ 151 ] 


Chapter XVI 
THE FUTURE 


I N the opinion of the writer the outlook of the 
Future is optimistic rather than discouraging, 
for the following reasons succinctly stated. 

i. This world is not the work of Chance, but of an 
allwise and powerful Creator, who for reasons of 
His own has been pleased to create it. 

It is inconceivable that the laws which control 
gravitation, heat, electricity, light, sound, or num¬ 
bers should be other than the result of the most 
profound intelligence. They were ordained in the 
beginning, and as to which there has been no de¬ 
velopment or improvement. Whatever may be 
said in regard to the evolution of plants and ani¬ 
mals, it has no application to the rules which con¬ 
trol energy or force. 

These laws so perfect in harmony, so uniform in 
action, that every one of them may be stated and 
solved mathematically, enforce the conviction of 
their origin in the intelligence and power of an in¬ 
conceivable Entity beyond the comprehension of 
the human mind. 

2. If these laws of nature are the work of a Divine 
Power then it is a compelling inference that all 

[ 152 ] 


The Future 

nature, including humanity, must owe its origin to 
the same source. 

3. The investigations of scientists in the realms of 
nature have discovered that man has existed on this 
earth for perhaps a million of years; that his early 
life was devoted almost exclusively to its preserva¬ 
tion and propagation of offspring, being a savage of 
a lower order than any existing at this day; that in 
this long period he has become modified and im¬ 
proved bodily, and particularly intellectually, until 
he is the ornament of creation. 

4. This improvement has been not the outcome 
of chance, but the definite result of a definite law 
of the Creator that he with all other life should be 
the result of the union of two different cells, com¬ 
bining two natures, male and female, and producing 
a new and different being, inheriting the traits of 
each, except as modified reciprocally by the other, 
and in turn transmitting to progeny such inherited 
and subsequently acquired characteristics, ad in¬ 
finitum. 

Out of the matrix of this simple law, and all the 
laws of nature are simple when thoroughly under¬ 
stood, has developed this wonderful world of beauti¬ 
ful vegetal and animal life. 

5. The one great fact of this Creation is the im¬ 
provement of all living things. There have been 
many changes. Whole species of animals in the 
long eras of world life have originated and died out, 
others have changed beyond recognition to their 
ancestors to accommodate themselves to their en- 

[ 153 ] 


Capital, Labor, and the State 

vironments, but on a broad survey there has in all 
life been growth in mind and body. 

6. By the special grace of this Creator, Man has 
surpassed all other animals. Why so, we do not 
know; but such is the fact. It has pleased Him to 
will it. 

On an observation of nature there is not the slight¬ 
est evidence that this decree for the universal im¬ 
provement of life has been changed, that there will 
be any other than minor retrogressions in minor 
species, or that man has been left out of the march 
of all things to the higher ranges of the mountain 
heights. On the contrary there is every cause to 
believe that he has not yet forfeited or lost the 
blessing of his Maker. 

7. There is no sign to indicate the termination of 
this Earth as a physical body, or the extinction of 
the human race. 

The globe will probably endure until in some re¬ 
mote eon it may come into collision with some sun 
or star and be rent into fragments like the asteroids 
have been; or rendered uninhabitable by either all 
the land being washed into the oceans; or the loss 
of its water, like the moon, by being tailed off into 
space, or sinking deeper into the body of the earth; 
or by the refrigeration of the sun; but all of 
these are remote, contingent, and uncertain events, 
and this globe and man may be in their infancy 
yet—that the present day is but one moment in 
the calendar of time, and the present man but 
one link in the chain which stretches from the early 

[ 154] 


The Future 

eras of the earth to some high place, we know not 
where. 

8 . Judging, therefore, the Future by the Past the 
outlook for Humanity has such elements of Divine 
favor that no mind, no imagination can foresee its 
future, except that it must be more and more glo¬ 
rious; and consequently the Reciprocal Rights of 
Capital, Labor, and Buyers more harmonized by 
mutual good will and Justice. 


[ 1551 



























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